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THE 



LIFE AND TIMES 



MARTIN YAN BUREN: 



THE 



(Horrcsp an&encc of Ijis Jrien&B, IcimilB mti |)itpxl0; 



TOGETHER WITH 



BRIEF NOTICES, SKETCHES, AND ANECDOTES, 

ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE PUBLIC CAREER OF 



James Knox Polk, 
Benjamin F. Bwtler, 
William L. Marcy, 
Robert J. Walker, 
Thomas Ritchie, 
Jesse and Lorenzo Hoyt, 
Levi Woodbury, 
John C. Calhoun, 
Andrew Jackson, 
George Bancroft, 
Aaron Bitrr, 
Samuel Young, 
Roger E. Taney, 
Michael Hoffman, 
James Gordon Bennett, 
James A. Hamilton, 
R. H. Morris, 



M. M. Noah, 
Jacob Barker, 
Aaron Ward, 
0. L. and E. Livinoston, 
M. AND H. Ulshoeffbr, 
Solomon Southwick, 
George McDcffie, 
Louis McLaNe, 
William H. 6rawford, 
Amos Kendall, 
George P. Barker, 
George Mifflin Dallas, 
C. C. Cambreleng, 
Cornelius W. Lawrence, 
Samuel Swartwout, 
Silas Wright, 
Walter Bownb, 



Edwin Croswell, 
Andrew Stevenson, 
Prosper M. Wetmore, 
Enos T. Throop, 
Reuben H. Walworth, 
Lewis Cass, 
John H. Eaton, 
AzARiAH C. Flago, 
Stephen Allen, 
Joel B. Sutherland, 
James Campbell, 
Francis P. Blair, 
Jonathan I. Coddington, 
William Coleman, 
Nathaniel Pitcher, 
T. W. Olcott, 
S. and L. Beardsley, &c. 



BY WILLIAM L. 



MACKENZIE. 
_1L 



Governments, like Clocks, go from the motion Men give them ; and as Governments are made and moved by Men, so bjr them 
they are rained too. Wherefore Governments rather depend upon Men than Men upon Governments. Let Mkn be good and the 
Government cannot be bad. If it be ill, they will cure it. But if Men be bad, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their torn. 

Prtjace to Ihr ConslitiUion of Pennsylvania, iy iVilliam Penn, 



BOSTON: 

COOKE & CO., WASHINGTON STREET 

1846. 



la-b.^ 



i- 






Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1846, by 

WILLIAM L. MACKENZIE, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



BAI. 



Abolitionists. Author not one 65 ; Marcy 
proposed to abolish the 274 ; Jefferson one of 
the first and firmest 276 ; Young on 281. 

Ad\ms, John auiNcy. Young a means of 
his election as president 57, 58; on Mexico 
6] ; Albany Argus speaks for 76 ; and again 
83 • 97 ; 101 ; vindicates Jackson's Flonda 
inroad 107 ; on navigation of St. Lawrence 
111 ; Kendall on 118; for relief to exiles 131 ; 
bank votes 134; bank enquiry baulked by 
Polk 135; on the bloodhound 146; Campbell 
agt 193 ; Cro.swell's artful plan agt. 195 ; didn't 
resi<^n 198 ; Wright on 203 ; Sanford for 204 ; 
election lost by 206 ; Swartwout's unprincipled 
opp. to 209; V. B. and 214; to Dutee J. 
Pearce 253 ; [his father on Canada 282.] 

Adopted Citizens. See Foreigners. 

Albany Argus. [See Edwin Croswell.] 
Not in state library, when for U. b. bank 
76; views, 1828, 128; V. B. on 190; on both 

Albany Regency, or Bucktail Head-quar- 
ters. 51 Feds, join them 29; 168; Noah on 

214. 

Allen, Orlando. Buffalo bank and 91. 

Allen, Stephen. Sub-treasurer 139: de- 
nounces the banks, he had made 174; to Hoyt 
for Tammany Bank 241; for U. S. bank, ib. 

Allen, Wra. Senate. Non-colomal 280 ; lor 

V B 295. 

Aliev Saul, 112; on tvranny of bank mono- 
poly [a' new discovery !] 174; wants Thomp- 
son removed 214 ; how made a bank director 
242. 

Anderson, Elbert J. A delegate for U. S. 

bank 249 

Angel,'w. H. [or C] 111; 126; 132; 231; 

hammers Root 234. . , , ,, t. 

Anti-Masonry. [See Southwick.] V. Buren 
on 204 and 229 ; Throop for 207 ; Adams for 
253. 

Anti-Renters, 14; a godsend for the Van 
Burens, [as in 1812] 148; 150. 

Apology for this book. 5 to 18. 

Appraisers of Merchandize. Swartwouts 
exhibit of the N. Y. sworn 223. 

Arbuthiiot, Capt. executed by Jackson 10b. 

Arnold, R. J. On gold mine, nullification, 

&c., 227, 243. u , J w 

Austin, S. Y. unfortunata as a bank debt 

coll'r. 94. 

Baird, John. Butler and 153, 158, borrows 

from 158. 



BAR. 

Baker, Caleb. 158; Butler's reinforcement 

by 160. ^„ 

Baltimore Convention, 18-44. 291 to 298. 

Bamber, John and James. Marcy's con- 
duct to 67. 

Bancroft, George. Was anti-slavery 295 ; 
on Convention, ib. 

Bank of Alabama, Deposites at Mobile 124. 

Bank of America, N. Y. Origin of 26 to 
28 ; deposites in 12-1. 

Bank of England. Its loans 1835 to '3 /— 
137 ; Peel on its new charter 140. 

Bank of State of N. Y. 116; a national pet 
124 ; a state pet 139. 

Bank Restriction Act. On repealing it 138 ; 
:t. 175, 176, 177. 



Marcy and Flagg ag 

Bank Stock Tax. Nevins agt. 188. 
Bank Suspensions, 1814, 1837, 1839. Gris- 
wold on 124; Binney on 135; in '37—136-7; 
Washington and Warren, and Barker's Ex- 
change 154 to 162. 

Bankrupt Law. Van Buren's profligacy 
caused the necessity of 78 ; bank movements 
137 ; Butler, Edmonds, &c. on 267. 

Bank.?. Tompkins on 27 ; Bailey on 28 ; 
Pennsylvania 36 ; a bank hard pressed 39 to 
44; N. Y. 1828—84 to 86; Clinton, &c. on 86, 
87; affect public justice 86; in Buffalo 90, 
91; Jackson on 92; Cambreleng and 101; 
Yoimg about 128 to 130 ; assignats preferred 
to 138 ; Hard on 138 ; Peel on 140 ; Olcott on 
I pretended 157; hints to empty handed, by 
Butler 154 to 160 ; Flagg and Marcy on 1 /5 ; 
Nevins on 188-9 ; Cambreleng & Tibbetts on 
232-3 ; bankrupt 267. 

[See also, Banks, of America, Auburn, State 
of N. Y., Buffalo, Chenango, Chemical, Cin- 
cinnati, Dry Dock, England, Exchange, Ful- 
ton Girard, Hud.son, Long Island, Lyons, Me- 
chanics & Farmers', Manhattan, Merchants, 
Morris Canal, Metropolis, New Hope, N. A. 
Trust Plattsburgh, Tonawanda, Tradesmen s, 
Utica, Watervliet, Washington and Warren; 
Bk restriction; Bk. Suspensions; Free Bank- 
ing; N. Y. Safety Fund banks; Pet or depo- 
site do. ; Sub Treasury, and Stockjobbers.] 

Barbour, Philip P. In Crawlbrd Caucus 
55 and 195; lOl. „ , r, a- , a 

Barker, George P. City Bank, Bufialo and 
90 91 ■ 132 

Barker, G. R. cashier. Letter to Butler 161. 

Barker, Jacob. Sets up Butler as a 'wild 

cat bank' president at Sandy Hill, 38 ; entraps the 



/ 









.%>' 



BOW. 



BUT. 



public 39, 40 ; puffs his Washington and War- 
ren concern 4'2, 43; wants a national bank 
44; Buffalo Bank and 154; Butler's manage- 
m't of his W. and W. bank 152 to 162; on the 
W. & W. B. 159; pays off Butler 163, would 
hire him again 165 ; to be tried for fraud 169 ; 
letters 192, 220. 

Beach Moses Y. Polk's herald, through 
Sun 280 ; extraordinary change of his Texas 
policy 305 to 307. 

Beardsley, Levi. Vote on Buffalo City 
Bank 90; 111; 129. 

Beardsley, Samuel, On bank deposites, and 
Polish exiles 131 ; Bank votes 134 ; nickname 
253 ; to Hoyt— notice of 254. 

Beekman, Dr. John P. 154 ; on V. B. 293. 
Beers, Jo.seph D. 137; a proper deputy 261. 
Bennett, James Gordon. On Kendall 122 ; 
on Calhoun 139 ; on state prison for defaulters 
141 ; 184 ; letters 221, 222 ; Marcy, Webb and 
235-6 ; on Van Buren, U. S. Bank and big 
gun 236-7; borrowing— hot for V. Buren— 
gets a cooler 245. 
Benton, Nath'l S. On banks, &c. 93. 
Benton, Thomas Hart. Votes for Steven- 
son 98; and for V. B. 112. 

Berrien, John M. of Ga. Jackson and 109. 

Betting on Elections. V. Buren for, Wright 

against 205 ; Gouverneur's 213 ; Hill's 239 ; 

Ritchie's 240 ; Hoyt and J. V. Buren's 255 ; 

Webb's ib. ; Lawrence's 262. 

Betts, Judge Sam. R. Could not find a law 

to punish Hoyt. [He only stole 0220,000 !] 

141 ; laws scarce nowadays, ib. ; notice of 190. 

Biddle, Nicholas. Van Buren and Marcy's 

petition to 79 ; who he was 115. 

Binney, Horace. Report on treasury banks 
133: speech on Polk's pets 135; on currency 

Birchard, Matthew, Solr. Treas. Fiat against 
merchants at Hoyt's request 271 ; 152. 

Blair, F. P. On foreigners 71 ; for banks 
88; on Congress 97; against Sub-treasury 134, 
139, 140 ; his style approved by V. B. — speci- 
mens 144 ; notice of 145 ; Fisk on, ib. ; on pub- 
lic expenditure 146 to 149 ; a hired machine of 
state 215 ; S2,022 paid for his press 233 ; lost 
the printing 242; on Polk 292; for anybody 295. 

Bleecker, Harmanus. Anti-war fed. — gets 
office from V. B. 44. 

Blennerhassett, Harman. Burr's confeder- 
ate 62 ; his son 259. 

Bloodhounds. Imported to track Indians 
and poor negroes in Florida 146. 

Bockee, Judge Abraham, [Ex— N. Y. Cus- 
toms.] Votes to let the pets keep U. S. trea- 
sure 134. 

Bogardus, Cornelius S. 10; 13, 14; 223; 
265. I . . . . 

Bouck, Joseph. Vote on deposits to pets 131. 

Boughton, Dr. Smith A. J. V. Buren gets 
S1250 for speaking at his two trials 148. 

Bowman, John, of Monroe Co. Moves ex- 
pulsion of Clinton from Canal Board 53 ; gets 



from Canal Board 53; against choice of Elec- 
tors by the citizens 57 ; 194 ; praises V. B. for 
his uprightness 102; 112; with Butler 169: 
185; V. B. on 216; 218; aided in starting 
Blair 233. ^ 

Boyd, G. D., Colmnbus. Embezzles 851,000 
133. ' 

Brady, Judge T. S. On the Bamber case 67. 

Branch, John. An M. C. takes office lOl ; 
his conduct and opinion of V. Buren 109. 

Breese, Sidney, U. S. Senate. Law to pun- 
ish embezzlement no law at all 141. 

Bribery and Corruption. Clinton on 30; 
87 ; Congressmen selected for ofiices 96 to 100 : 
124. 

Brinkerhoff, Jacob. On Canada 283; for 
Van Buren 295. 

Britain. Great, glorious, salutary and 
peaceful reforms in 46, 47. 

Brokers, Wall St. Butler abuses them 45 ; 
is sharper than 160. 

Brownson, Alvin [federal, mercht. Oswego]. 
Votes to drive Clinton from the canals 53 ; 
with the immoHal 17, 57; a Butler democrat 
169. 

Bronson, Greene C. 207. 

Brown, William [Brown, Shipley & Co 1 
Bank loan to 137. 

BroMTison, O. A. On trading politicians 
35 ; letter to Mackenzie 143. 

Buchanan, James. 98; 100; 123; colonial 
policy obanged 280. 

Buckner, Wm. G. Hoyt, and the banks 
and 179. 

Bucktails. How named 50 ; Crawford cau- 
cus 57 ; Butler joins 163 ; no office if not one 
186; flag 198; 211. 

Buel, Judge Jesse. Sells Argus to V, Bu- 
ren, &CC. 190. 

Buffalo, Bank of, 1816. Dishonest charter 
granted by Van Buren, &c., to 31 to 33 j But- 
ler on 154; Hoyt for cashier 155. 

Buffalo, Bank of. 91. 

Buflalo, City Bank of. Some facts about 
90, 91. 

Buffalo Commercial Advertiser. On Mar- 
cy, &c. 125. 

Buffalo, Conmiercial Bank of. 94. 

Bunner, Rudolph. 200; 212. 

Buonaparte, Napoleon. On national hospi- 
tality 67. 

Burke, Edmund. On popular movements, 
1 ; on currency and usury 149. 

Burr, Aaron. 21 ; the first to nominate 
Jackson 58; 259; his plans against Mexico 
and this Union 60 to 63 ; notice of 62. 

Burrows, Latham A. Skinner tries to in- 
fluence 197. 

BuiTows, Silas E. Swartwout praises 222 : 
notice of 223 ; loan to Webb and Noah 235. 

Butler, Benjamin F. 5 ; Glentworth affair 
by 11 ; 16; Polk continues S20,000 a year to, 
Ritchie defends him — Butler's early life— piety 
of father and son— Washington & Warren 



Rochester bank (party) charter, ib. ; one of the bank charter passed 37, 38 ; Butler as its pres- 
immortal 17, 57. ident 39 to 44 ; his hypocrisy ib. ; Wright en- 

Bowne, Walter. Voted to expel Clinton ' dorses him 41 ; on Polk, ib.; the Brokers and 



IV 



CAN. 



INDEX. 



CLI. 



43 ; he prays to Biddle for a branch of the U. 
S. bank 79'; a strong U. S. bank man 84 to8i3; 
wishes stockholders not to be liable 8t3; 128; 
borrows U. S. revenue from pets 135; taritf 
management 139. [Letters.] Pender and 
principle 152 ; 'stated preaching' 152; Clinton 
152; banking 153; law, banking, chancery. 
Van Buren 151 ; Hoyt and Bank of Buffalo 
155 ; banking immoral 15G ; avarice rebuked 
157; cmiuing and champagne — the Pairoon 
158 ; gulls the people 159 ; bullies bankers and 
brokers — crows 160; postscript to piety — fair 
and proper calls IGI ; exhorts Jesse 162 ; Julius 
Cossar, a bucklail 163 ; V. Buren partnership 
— Sandy Hill, adieu! 164-5; American Ers- 
kine, organized corps, envy 166-7 ; piety, 
cheating in politics — Young's nomination 
168-9 ; dear Hoyt, John Duer 170-1 ; on Jack- 
son and banking 172; abuse of Clinton by 
152; 161; 164; l67; for a U. S. Bank— not 
now! 171,; Flagg on election of 173; Dist. 
Att'y Alb. 190 ; wrote Bowne's report against 
popular elections 194 ; on Hoyt's sureties, ib. ; 
a candidate 206 ; 221-2 ; cant and hypocri.sy, 
unequalled 254 ; on laws for debtor and credi- 
tor 267 ; at BaUimore 293 ; moves Texas ! re- 
solve 294 ; on hard cider 295. 

Butler, Benjamin F. Letter.s, number 1 to 
number 67 — 63 letters, in all; pages 151 to 
172. 

Butler, Charles. 154. 

Butler, Mrs. Harriet. On Mrs. Olcott 156 ; 
esteems Jesse Hoyt 168 ; on Croswell, Noah, 
Sutherland, Tallmadge 170 ; makes Edmonds 
a Belisarius — Hoyt, Butler, &c. 171. 

Butler, Medad, father of B.F. His piety, 
&c. 37. 

Butchers and Drovers' Bank, N. Y. Lo.st 
in 1828—93. 

Calhoun, John C. 47; his course on Texas 
and Slavery 64 to 66 ; vote against Stevenson 
98 ; 105 ; on Seminole war and Jackson 106 ; 
casting vote again.st V. B. 112; votes for Y. B. 
as president 112, 283 ; on removal of deposits 
121 ; for one bank or a specie currency 140 ; 
afraid of losing the tariff 143 ; Blair and 144 ; 
Seldenonl74; 189; Godwin on 251; on bank- 
rupt laws 267 ; on slavery 275 ; on laborers 
281 ; on Canada 284 ; on lands 308. 

Cambret.eng, C. C. In the Crawford Cau- 
cus 55; 100; notice of 101 ; visits Crawford 
108; votes aid to Poles 131 ; votes on deposits 
134; endorses for Y. B. 184; on Clay, &c. 
200 ; for Coddington 207 ; wants a place 213 ; 
picks parti.sans for customs 219 ; letters 224 ; 
226; on railroad and turnpike 228; against 
McLane's Treas. report — on Webb 230 ; on 
bank and workics 231 ; forTibbets's plan 232 ; 
for a national bank 233 ; on Pewter Mug and 
private letters 234 ; an M. C. getting P. Ms. 
and b'k directors appointed 212 ; note by 263. 

Cambreleng, St(;phen. Stihvell for 226. 
' Campbell, James. 112; letter to Hoyt — dis- 
likes the morchts. 191 — politics and elections 
193; on Clinton's death— Sanford 203 ; 219. 

Canada. A refuge for the slave 65 ; tradw 



282 to 289 ; opinions on, ib. ; causes for revolt 
285 to 28S ; Marcy on 293, 295. 

Cantine, Moses I. On banks 31 to 38 ; 129 ; 
dies 190 ; state bank director 307. 

Cargill, Abraham. Yote on M. and F. bank 
86; 206; 208. 

Carter, Nath'l H. Editor — Y. B. stops his 
paper for economy 187. 

Cary, Trumbull. Safety Fund report by 89. 

Cass, Lewis. Memoir of 102 to 105; on a 
bank 104; on Indians, slaves, and Texas 105; 
before Baltimore convention 292, 293 ; on the 
Indians 296. 

Caucus. Y. Buren yes and no 44; Crawford 
congressional 55 and 195 ; Butler for 168 ; buck- 
tail 57; J. Y. Buren's appointment by a 148; 
Y. B. 190; state 197. 

Cebra, Alderman John Yates. 220. 

Chancery, Court op. 13 ; [see Wm. T. 
M'Coun ;] a.'iked to remove old Buffalo bank, 
a Nuisance 33 ; Kent refuses Butler's injunc- 
tions 42 ; use of in safety fund b'ks 94 ; Butler 
and 154; tried for a base purpose by Butler 
160; Butler and Yan Buren's practice in 164- 
5; fees long in coming 167; its bushel basket 
170 ; court of errors worse 193 ; notice of 303-4. 

Chauncey, Commodore Isaac. Recommends 
Wasson 220. 

Channing, Dr. W. H. To Clay on Texas 
63 ; on laborers 281. 

ChemicLil Bank, N. Y. 33; 87. 

Chenango, Bank of. Its charter how passed 
34 ; Y. Buren dodging, &;c. 129. 

Church and State Unions. 69, 70. 

Cincinnati. Commercial Bank of, deposits 
in 124. 

Clay, Henry. Yan Buren for 83 ; on Ste- 
venson 97, 98; on St. Lawrence na\igation 
112; vote on V. B's embassy 112; treatment 
of by Kendall 117 to 120; not interested in 
U. S. B. 119 ; on Duane 122; Young for 128; 
on state banks 138 ; Campbell on 232 ; Yan 
Buren on 197-8; 202; Noah's slanders 214; 
Cambrelengon 232; commis-sioners sent to Pa- 
nama by Adams and 279 ; on the Colonies 285 ; 
Ritchie on 292. 

Clayton, Augu-stine Smith. On U. S. Bank 
233 ; on private letters 234. 

Ciavton, John M. Yote against Stevenson 
98; rejects Y. B. 112. 

Clark, Aaron. 165, 167, 196. 

Clark, Lot. In Crawford caucus 55 and 
195. 

Cr^iNTON, De Witt. 21 ; Clinton nominated 
for President, 1812,4-4; opposed by Bucktails 
and Feds 29 ; expo.ses official corruption 30 ; 
recommends the Convention of 1821, ib. ; and 
Bank inquiry 35; Yan Buren his political 
aide-de-camp 4-1 ; Spencer on his and Van Bu- 
ren's conduct, 1812, 4H, 49 ; Duane on 49 ; 54 ; 
the Canals and 50 ; Y. Buren's dujilicity to, ib. ; 
he is expelled the oliice of Canal Commission- 
er — American gratitude to 51, 52 ; his perse- 
cutors 53; Van Bureu lauds him gij'when 
dead 54; but hated him, ib. ; Col. Stone on 
V. E. ib. ; Jackson and Ritchie on 55; enmi- 



112; Brownson on 144 ; 268 ; iasmrections in j ty to 56; Davis on 81 ; on banking 86; 108; 



CRA. 



Die. 



127; Butler's abuse of 152; 161; 164; 167; 
V. B. on 184; 196-7; 202; Wright and Camp- 
bell on 203-1 ; 206-7; on common law 302. 

Clinton, George. Gives casting vote against 
U. S. Bank 77. 

Clinton Co. Bank. [See Plattsburgh b'ks.] 

Coddington, Jonathan I. 10 ; 12, 13 ; V. B. 
to 206 ; Cambreleng comforts 207 ; letters 208, 
209 ; office-hunting, ib. ; 213 ib. ; ready to mu- 
tiny 214 ; Bennett's friend 221 ; 230 ; 238 ; 
will be P. M. 242 ; 292. 

Coe, William S. 219 ; Swartwout on his 
appraising goods 223; a fire commissioner 
258; forfeitures 271. 

Collectorship of Customs, N. Y. 10. 

Coleman, William. Remarks on 57 ; 
abuses the United Irish 68 ; on Jackson and 
the Seminoles 106; peace 269. 

Colonial Trade with U. S. 111,112. 

Colles, Christopher. Planned the Western 
Canal 50. 

Commerce. Colonial HI, 112. 

Commercial Advertiser. On Hoyt and But- 
ler's Lives 18; Van Buren, Clinton's most art- 
ful enemy 54 ; on Texas 306. 

Common Law. Defined by Morris and Hall 
11 ; a chapter on 302 to 305. 

Commonwealth Bank Boston. Deposits in 
124. 

Cooper, Judge Thomas. His strictiu-es on 
W. H. Crawford 68 to 72. 

Conckling, Alfred. Supports Clinton when 
driven from Canal board 53. 

Congress. Committees how named 97. 

Congres.s of Panama. Van Buren, Polk, 
Adams, Clav, Buchanan, M'Lane, &c., on 279, 
280. 

Congress. Speakers, rem'ks on 96 to 99. 

Congicssmen selected for Office. A chapter 
on the speaking and acting, about 96 to 99 ; 
Wickliffe, Duane, and Jackson on 9G ; Blair 
on 97; Ritchie on 97 to 100; paid wages for 
non-attendance ! 149. 

Convention, N. Y. Constitutional. See N. 
Y. Constitutional Convention. 

Corcoran & Riggs. Walker's sub-treasurers, 
143. 

Corning, Erastits, 90, 228 ; 293. 

Coryell, Ingham. 10 ; 13, 14. 

Coster, J. G. A borrowing of deposites de- 
mocrat 135. 

Coulter, Richard, of Pa. On Taney's care 
for Taney, 135. 

Courier & Enquirer. Friar's jump 230. 

Craig, Hector. Notice of 213. 

Cramer, John. Supports Clinton when per- 
.secuted 54 ; for presidential electors by the peo- 
ple 57; on banks 86; bank votes, 87, 134; 
helps E. Livingston, 185. 

Crawford, W. H. Minority Caucus to 
nominate for president, 182-1, 55 & 68 ; Young 
insures his defeat in N. Y. 57 ; notice of 68 ; 
Cooper on his hatred to foreigners, 68 to 71 ; 
for a national bank 74 to 78 ; conduct to Cal- 
hotm on the Seminole war question 107, 108 ; 
Butler's artful hints about 16S ; V. Buren visits 
201. * 



Crolius, Clarkson. Votes to give the people 
the choice of electors 57; on banking 86; 
Flagg on 173 ; scolded 186 ; 195. 

Crosweli-, Edwin 53 ; set up by Van Buren 
74 ; an admirer of U. S. Banks, 74 to 77 ; abuses 
Jackson 78, 79; for Clay and Adams, 83; on 
Safety Fund 84 to 87; banks in 1828— ib; 
prints Young's private petition 129 ; for mixed 
money 139; notice of 146, 147; Argus concern, 
by Butler, for 169; Argus 190; artful letter 
to Hoyt abt. Crawford, &c., 195 ; Bennett and 
221 ; Webb on 230 to 232 ; do., Marcy &c 235 ; 
V. B.'s friend 236 ; to Hoyt— for 5 mill, loan- 
dared not offer a 10 mill. b'k. 252 ; ag't. V. B. 
293. 

Cruger, John C. Betting with Hoyt, 256. 

Cuba. Van Buren, &c., on Slavery in 279, 
280. 

Cunningham of Montgomery's gallant de- 
fence of Clinton 51. 

Currency. [See Banks — U. S. Bank — and 
Sub-Treasur}'.] 78; 139; 140; if deranged 
impairs contracts and changes the constitu- 
tional protection 141 ; Butler on a sliding scale 
in 154; Livingston on 178. 

Curtis, Edward. 9. 

Custom Houses. [See N. Y. Custom House.] 

Cutting, Francis B. 112; 126; on the lob- 
by 174; for free banking 177; swears on 
paper, advice by 180 ; speculates with Hoyt 261. 

Dallas, Alex. James. A Philadelphia finan- 
cier 297. 

Dallas, George Mifflin. Gets Russian mis- 
sion 100; Cass admires 104; votes for V. B. 
as minister to London 112; V. B. lauds 295; 
notice of— a circular statesman 297 — 298; a 
mile's a mile 298 ; V. P. ib. 

Davezac, Augu.ste. 62, 63. 

Davis, George R. Notice of 94. 

Davis, Matthew L. 12 ; on Burr's Mexi- 
can movement 62 ; 121; 185; 197; 220; 237. 

Davis, Richard D. Character of Van Bu- 
ren by 81, 80; he joins V. B. 80. 

Dawson, George. On Canada 290. 

Dawson, Moses. Jackson's letter to, against 
the pets 116. 

Dayton, Aaron Ogden. Electioneers for 
Jackson 63. 

Dayton, General Jonathan. Indicted in 
Burr's affair 63. 

Debts. Repudiation of 267 ; wretched bank- 
rupt laws, ib. 

Decatur, Col. J. P. Office-seeking 221 ; 
304. 

Defalcations, Defaulters. [See Embezzling 
Public Monies.] Banks in 1814, 124. 

Democratic Review. See J. L. O'Sullivan. 

Democrats. On paper money 78 ; V. Buren 
sort 196-7; timber in ranks of 227. 

Denman, William. On Van Buren 70. 

Desha, Joseph. On taking Canada 285. 

Desha, Robert. Warns Eaton against the 
Widow 109. 

Devyr, Thomas A. Would secure wild 
lands to settlers only 15p. 

Dickinson, Daniel S. On V. B. 203: his 
mileage 298. 



EMB. 



GAL. 



Dissolution of the Union. McDuffie on 61 ; 
Beach on 306. 

Dix, John A. Pro-slavery-and-Texas Sena- 
tor 281. 

Downing, Col. S. Votes for City Bank, 
Buffalo 90. 

Dromgoole, George C. 97. 

Dry Dock Bank, N. Y. 94. 

Duane, William. On last War 4; on Mer- 
chants' Bank 28 ; on Clinton 49, 54 ; on'Burr's 
conspiracy 62 ; on congressmen 96 ; notice of 
115; approves of refusal to remove deposits 
119; 122; on newspapers 147; ib. 182; on 
the peace 269. 

Duane, William John. 100; secretary of 
the treasury 115; notice of 116; his course re- 
lative to the public treasure 116 to 121; 141; 
refuses Russian Mission 122; dismissed 122, 
123; married Franklin's grand-daughter IIG; 
deposits and 131 ; ib. 246. 

Dudley, Charles E. Votes to drive Clinton 
from the canal board 53 ; one of the immortal 17 
—57; prays to Biddle for a branch of the U. S.'B. 
79 ; party votes for banks 87 ; to Hoyt 210. 

Duels. 3. 

Duer, John. On Van Ness's bribery 28; 
joins the Bucktails 29; Butler on 170; 184; 
190 ; 209 ; notice of 210 ; Hoj-t bitter against 
212, 218, 219. 

Duer, Col. William. 210. 

Duer, William A. Joins the Bucktails 29 ; 
defends the right against Allen 51 ; notice of 
210. 

Duncan, Dr. Alex. For V. B. at Bait. 295. 

Durben, Dr. On War 4. 

Durham, Earl of Explains causes of revolt 
in Canada 285 to 287. 

Earll, Jonas, Jr. Votes to expel Clinton 
from the Canal Board 53; one of VanBuren's 
'immortal 17—57; bank votes by 87. 

Eaton, John Henry. Leaves Congress for 
office 101. 

Eaton, Lewis. In Cra\vford Caucus 55; 
president City Bank, Buffalo 91 ; safety fund 
commissioner 93. 

Eaton, Mrs. [Widow Timberlake]. Trou- 
ble about her character 109. 

Edmonds, John W. Stockjobbing 67 ; 1 1 1 ; | 
126; sends J. V. Buren to jail, and advises 

Wright to give him $1000 148; Butler on 

164; Mrs. Butler on his pauperism 171 ; note 
205 ; Webb and 225 ; on debt laws 267. 

Education. By cheap Postage 4 ; 301 ; im- 
portance of 20 ; Girard leaves millions for 1 16 ; 
Smithson $500,000 for 116; Young and L. 
Reardsley and 129 ; Hoyt goes to V. B.'s aca- 
demy 217 ; of laborers 281. 

Electioneering. By V. B. 124; Jackson 96 ; 
Purdy and Hoffman 132; Marcyon237; A. 
Ward 238-9. 

Elections by the People. 2 ; by districts 56. 
Electoral Bill (1821.) Butler against 168-9; 
Croswell on 195-6 ; ready to vote either way 
on 196. 

Ellis, Powhattan. 101 ; votes for V. B. as 
minister 112. 
Embargo. Clinton on 21; 34. 



Embezzling Public Monies. Theron Rudd 
24 ; cases 133 ; law to punish, itself a cheat 
141 ; 149. 

Emmet, Thomas Addis. Takes part with 
Clinton when expelled from the canal board 52. 

England. [See Britain.] 

Everett, Edward. 11 ; for aid to exiles 131 ; 
votes about deposits 134. 

Ewing Thomas. Vote against Stevenson 
98; and against V. Buren 112. 

Exchange Bank (Barker's.) 39 ; 157 ; 158 ; 
162. 

Fillmore, Millard. Votes on M. & F. bank 
86 ; for aiding Polish exiles 131. 

Fish, Preserved. Director of 6 mill, bank 
27; 112; instructs V. B. 214 ; Cambreleng for 
234. 

Fisk, Theophilus. Blair by 145. 

Flago, Azariah C. Votes, 1824, to expel 
Clinton from the canal board 52; performs, 
1828, as one of his chief mourners ! 55 ; votes 
with the immortal 17 to keep power from the 
people 57 ; votes for party bank charters 87 ; 
tree banks and 137-8 ; his state pet bank system 
139 ; buys 3 walls of a house 147 ; on his re- 
solve against popular election, Butler, Selden 
and Van Buren 173 ; on free banking 174 ; 
regency log-rolling, the lobby, gold, and bank 
restraints 175; his currency cure and notions, 
ib. ; on safety fund banks 176 ; against foreign 
monsters 179 ; on private banking 176-9 ; gen- 
eral banking law I8l, 182 ; succeeds Yates 
188 ; 203 ; Bennett and 221 ; councils Marcy 
on breeches 239. 

Florida. Jackson in 106; V. Buren ex- 
pends many millions in 145., 6cc.; bloodhounds 
in 146 ; Greeley on war in 282 ; 296. 

Foreigners — Adopted Citizens. Van Bu- 
ren about 44 ; a chapter on 66 to 72 ; Craw- 
ford's attack and Cooper's defence of 68 to 71 ; 
Irving, Denman, Van Ness on 70 ; Blair on 
71; millions left by, to educate natives 116; 
V. Buren and 236. 

Forman, Judge Joshua. Invents the f^'Sale- 
ty Fund 84; 88; 206. 

Foot, Samuel A. On political proscription 
112. I 

Forsyth, John. In Crawford caucus 55; 
votes for Stevenson 98 ; lOl ; intrigues for V. 
Buren 107-8 ; in Crawford caucus 195. 

France. Her views and condition 46, 47 ; 
Butler on troubles with 172 ; Guizot on 280. 

Franklin, Benjamin. And England's chan- 
cery 304. 

Free Banking. 95; 137-8; Peel against 
140; Flagg, Livingston, Cutting, &c. on 173 
to 182; Hoyt's 178. 

Free Trade. America and Britain 270. 

Frelinghuysen, Theodore. Ill; rejects V. 
B. 122. 

French, James M. 20. 

Fulton Bank, N. Y. Chartered 87. 
Gaines, Gen. Edmund. Ordered to invade 
Mexico 64. 
Gales and Seaton. On War 3. 
Gallatin, Albert. A candidate for V. P. 71 ; 
on U. S. banks 77 ; ib. 171. 



HOS. 



JUR. 



ni 



Gardner, Col. Chas. K. Notice of 18a 

Garrow, Nathaniel. 101. 

Georgia Legi.slature. McAllister's account of — not too 
fond of gold mines 228-9. 

Gilchrist, Mr. Butler and 157. 

Gillett, Ransom H. Votes aid to exiles 131 ; upon de- 
posite question 134. 

Girard, Stephen. A Frenchman leaves millions to ed- 
ucate Americans 116, 

Girard Bank, Phila. Deposit«s in 124. 

Glentworth. Hi Butler's cant and hypocrisy, bor- 
rowed for the election 2.34. 

Godwin, Parke. Strong remarks on relieving public 
distress, by 250-1, 

Goldson, Samuel P. 10, 13, 14, 

Gorham, Benjamin. Report on treasury banks 133. 

Gospel. Butler's anxiety for stated preaching of the 
152. 

Gouverneur, Sam, A. Bets 212. 

Graham, John L. 177. 

Greeley, Horace. On Nativeism 70 ; on Walker 98 ; 
on a state sub-treasury 139; on protection to land set- 
tlers 150 ; on Florida 282 ; on Ritchie 299 ; on Texas 
scrip 301. 

Green, Bjnram. Votes to expel Clinton from canal 
board, 1624, 53. 

Green, General DnfT. 106, 107, 118, 145; V. B. and 
C.ainbreleng subscribe 200 ; printer to Congres.s 208. 

Green, James L. 183. 

Green, Benjamin W. 299 ; 301. 

Greene, Major, of Boston Post, Ritchie gri«ved at 
214, 215; on common law 302-3. 

Griswold, George. On Banks 124; Butler on 171. 

Grundy, Felix, Votes for Stevenson 98 ; and for Van 
Buren 112; teaches Polk law 12.3; on Cana<la2S4. 

Guizot, F. For neutrality by France, on war here 280. 

Hall, Jonathan Prescott. On Butler's patriotism 255. 

Hall, "Willis. On common law 11, 

Halleck, Fitz Greene. Butler on 162; letter 163. 

Hallett, W. P. 112. 

Hanier, Thomas L. Votes on deposits 134. 

Hamilton, Alexander. Prefers Jefferson to Burr 62. 

Hamilton, James A. Impeaches Van Ness for bribery 
"is ; joins the Bucktails 29 ; succeeds Clay as secretary of 



st.ite, pro tem. 45 ; strong opposer of the war 4o; in the I relea,se 290. 



Houston, Samuel. In Texas 64, 106 • Beach on S0\ 

Hoyt and Butler. Corresjiondence, pages 9 to 14 •, lives 
of 129; pa^es 151 and 172. 

HoYT, Jesse. Vouchers inopportunely stolen from 
132; his embezzlement 141 ; Butler's caU to the uncon- 
verted 1.52; admitted in chancery court 152; Butler's 
character of— wants him to be cashier at Buffalo 155 ; 
learning of 156 ; publishes Butler's letter to deceive 159; 
Butler exhorts 162; writes to none but 163; is the oldest 
friend of 170 ; helps Marcy to write his message 175 ; N. 
A. Trust Co. and 179, 182; to, on marriage 185; the 
storekeeper 187 ; his sureties as collect<^ir 194 ; V. B. en- 
dorses for 201 ; office-hunting 208 to 212; V. B. on his 
ill-manners — hunts for an office to him — educates him 
216, 217 ; Ingham to, on embezzling, ib. ; pushes for a 
place 218 ; helps Blair 233 : introduces Anderson and 
Kernochan 249 ; hates rogues — pays for the gospel 250 ; 
bets 255 ; debts of 258; a fire commissioner, ib.; specu- 
lates with the deposites 261 ; slanders the merchants 
271. 

Hoyt, Lorenzo, Manager of Washington and Warren 
bank 161 ; VanBuren's student 165, 166, 188; likes law 
to beat down equity 193; morals so so 194; notice of, 
ib. ; letter 194; a surety for $200,000, 194; utterly de- 
void of principle 19J; for the spoils 210; lobbying 237; 
on Livingston's conversion 241-2 ; dealing in stocks 252; 
agent to Silas Wright 259. 

Hubbell, Walter. Warns the state against V, B.'s 
Safety Fund 89. 

Hubbard, Henry. Votes for the treasury pets 131 ; 
ditto 134 ; proposes Polk 293. 

Hubbell, Levi. On Marcy and Sub-Treasury 207. 

Hudson, Bank of. Van Buren lobbies fur the, and 
takes office in 23, 24 ; winding up of 307. 

Hull, General W, On Canada 284, 

Hume, Joseph. Efforts to do justice to Canada 286-8. 

Hunter John. VoteonCity Bank, Buffalo 90; on free 
banks 176. 

Hj-pocrisy, Religious. See Butler, 

Immortal Seventeen Senators of N, Y. 57. 

Indians. On marriages with 69, 71 ; Caps on the 105. 
297 ; J;ickson and 1( K5 ; warlike condition of the 275 ; fifty 
millions expended to banish and kill282 ; Ritchie on 300 

lugersoll, Charles J. On banks 114; for Mackenzie's 



intrigue against Calhoun 107 ; auctions, Targee and 205 ; 
a spoilsman 209 ; 218; buys Blair a press 233; to prop 
the Standard 247. 

Hamilton. John C. Joins the Bucktails 29; 2ia 

Hammond, Jabez D. Ambrose Spencer on 48^ the Jed. 
Prendergast case 52. 

Hancock, John. On private lett^ers on public Blatters 
304. 

H;ird, Gideoo date M. C] On banks 138; on slavery 
C81. 

Hard Money. The Jackson reform 139, 140; Ander- 
son doubts it 249. 

Harris, W. P. Columbus. EmbeEzles $105,000—133. 

Harrison, William H. His death 102; Cass on 104; 
on ourrency 139 ; abuse of, approved by Van Buren 144 ; 
•defeats Van Buren 2.S".1, 

Havemever, William F, 213. 

Hayne, CoL R. M. 108; rejects V. B 112; his son 200. 

Head, Sir Francis. A vain, bad Canadian governor 
C86 to 28a 

Herkimer Convention. 1828—207. 

Hill, Isaac. On Adams, Clay and Crawford 83; Votes 
for Stevenson 98; and for V. Buren 112; exposC of Blair 
by 115; Ritchie on 214; his speech 232 ; betting 239. 

Hoes, Mary and Hannah 19, 20. 

Hoes, Barent. Security for Argus 190; d'y sh'f, ib. 

Hoffman, Josiah C^en. Joins the Bucktails 29 ; Camp- 
bell on 204, 21S. 

Hoffman, Michael Vote on M, and F. bank 86 ; 
for Barker 91; notice of 131, 132; sinecure— offices held 
by — pet bank votes 131 ; mismanagement in office of 132; 
Webb and 232. 

Hogeboom, John C A $10 loan to nephew afflicts V. 
B. ISl: Cornelius, in office 190; presides in Hudson 
bank 308. • 

Holland's Life of V. Buren. Puffs him 79. 

Holmes, John. Voted to reject V. B. 112. 

Horn, Henry. Vote on treasury deposit«s 131. 

Hosack, Dr. David, Butler against 109, 



Ingham, S. D, Opposes the minority caucus of 1824, 
55; 100; Jackson and 109; Riissia and 110; Hoyt and 
209; on office-beggars 216, 217 ; note 240 

Instructions. Right of, 2. 

Ireland. Rojal bribery in 96. 

Irving, John T. On intolerance 70. 

JacksoNj Andrew. Coddington tries to head 13; 
opinion of Clinton by 55; nominated first by Burr 58; 
259; his des^ns against Mexico, with Burr, 60 to 64; 
Jefferson on 60; Mexican policy of 64; abuse of, by Noah 
and Crosweli 78, 79 ; practice and profession on appoint- 
ments 96 to 99; invasion of Florida by lCi6 ; Mrs. Eaton 
and 109; Ingham and 110; on pet banks 114; scolds the 
pets 1 16 ; D\ian« and 122 ; his great reform 139 ; for hard 
money 140; anti-Suh-Treasury 141; e^capes an as.«afsin 
172; his confideii«; in Van Buren 216 ; for 231 ; to be run 
again 293 ; Ritchie on 3fKl ; Van Buren and 302. 

Jackson, Daniel. And Blair's yVfe press 233; bank- 
bepgar, ib. 

James, William. Takes part with Clinton when vio- 
lently removed from the Canals 52. 

Jay, William. On slavery 278. 

Jefferson, Thomas. 6; on Burr 00; on elections 98; 
on England 271; on slavery 275. 

Johnson, Cave. Votes for deposits to Polk's pet« 131 
and 134 ; and no relief to poor exiles 131 ; at Convention 
292; 295; and postage law 301. 

Johnson, Jeromus. From Congress to Custom House 
101 ; billeting his relations 219 ; Swartweut on his ap- 
praising 223. 

Johnson, Richard I\I. Opposes the 1824 Crawford cau- 
cus .55 ; votes on deposit question 134; endorses Van Bu- 
ren 283; for Canada 285 ; on author's imprisonment 291. 

Jones, Henry Floyd. Vote on Buffalo Citv Bank 9)1. 

Jones, Samuel For six million bank 27 ; Chief Justice 
■27 ; Hoyt's surety for ?200,000— 194. 

Jordan, Ambrose L. Opposed by the regency 210. 

Jurors. On Bodine trial 6 ; merchants onJered to be 
excluded OS^ in mercaatile ca£e< 271. 



KEY. 



MAY. 



Justice, Administration of. Refonn required in| 
6; in the Somers case 7 ; corrupt where biinlj.s are in- 
volved SG; Buflfalo bauking and 90, 91 ; by L. Hoyt, 193. 

Keim, George M. On Mackenzie's imprisonment 290. 

Kemble, John W. Abuses the Irish, and jobs in the 
stocks 67 ; 111. 

Kendall, Amos. Letters to Clay on Jackson, &c. 83; 
Sketch of— his conduct to Clay 1 17 to IM ; abuse of Mac- 
kenzie 118; Bennett on 122; 126; on free banking 133; 
Kitchte scandalized at 214, 215. 

Laborers. Their condition, by Calhoun and Chanaing 
281. 

Lansing, John. V, Buren w'd make him a P. M. 82. 

Law. In U. S. 6 ; in N. Y. state 1.38 ; in court of er- 
rors, Alb'y 193; [see 302 to 305, also com. law, and court 
of chancery]. 

Lawrence, Cornelius W. Gets the N. Y. Custom 
Ho. 12, 292; retains Record Clerks and Bogardus 13 
1 12 ; got a two million charter, and veered 1 16 ; 125 ; 132 
votes on treasury banks 134; help.-) Blair to a press 233 
238 ; disreputable conduct on the bank question 247; let 
ters to Hoyt on b'k248; more of them 219; bets with 
Hoyt 262. 

Lawrence, Joseph. Bank President, &c. 116. 

Lawrence, W. B. On free banking 174. 

Laws. Who should have the VetoT)n 2; check on bad 
laws in Ga. 229. 

Leake, Isaac Q. Cashier V. B.'s old Buffalo bank, 33 ; 
Cantine's partner in the Argus 34; Ulshoeffer for 190; 
for Clay 197. 

Leavitt, Joshua. On Van Buren's pro slavery creed 
278. 

Le Foy, Abraham. Gets into custom house — nom's 
Marcy 257. 

Lee, Gideon. 112 ; Leggett on 236. 

Lee, John R. Trial for perjury 91. 

Lee, Oliver. Polk deleg.ate and pet banker 293. 

Lefferts, .lohn, L. I. Votes to drive Clinton from ca- 
nal board 53; and as one of the immortal 17 — 57 ; bank 
votes 87. 

Leggett, Wm. On Dl. Jackson 233; on Marcy 235; 
notice of 262. 

Lewis, Dixon, H. Vote agst. pet b'ks 134. 

Lewis, I\Iaior W. B. On com. of enquiry about Jackson 
00: Ritchie 'to 98; 109; 300. 

Lewis, Morgan. For 6 mill. b'k. 27. 

Lincoln, Levi. Votes abt. deposites 134. 

Livingston, Chfu-Ies L. Opposed to Bishop's expul- 
Hon67; and to safety fund 92; HI; 126; and to the 
•• chartered nuisances '' he had made — for some restraints 
off 176 to 181 ; on N. Y. pilots 173; on ci-edit, ib. ; advice 
to Hoyt 180; 225; notice of— for national bank 211. 

Iiiviugston, Edward, of La. [was a defaulter at N. Y. 
for $100,000!. Offer to Stevenson 98 ; leaves congress for 
the cabinet ltd ; Davezac marries his sister 63. 

Livingston, Edward, Speaker H. of A. Cutting on his 
bank notions 177; 180; notice of 184; on marriage !85; 
letters 186-7; 197 (for lottery). 

Livingston, Edward P. A candidate for Senator — de- 
feated 29; votes, 1821, to drive Clinton from Canal board 
53; against electors by the people 57. 

Livingston, Peter R. 185. 

Livingston, R. U. Opposed by Van Alen for Congress 
21 : one of the 1st canal coni'rs 5.3. 

Literary Property. See W. T. M'Coun. 

Lives of Hoyt and Butler. Motives (or, and account 
of, that publication 7 to 18 ; where printed and by whom 
18: the publishers, ib. 

Lobby, The. Cutting's name for 174, 180; L. Hoyt 
w'd join 2.37. 

London Times. Its tone In 1814—268. 

Long Island Bank. f:h,artered 37. 

Loomis, A. Gets stock with Hoffman, &c. 131-2. 

Lounsbcrry, Ehenezer. Votes for city b'k. Buffalo 90. 

Lyon.s, Bk. of. Bri)Ueu 94. 

Lytle, Robert T. An M. C. gets office 101. 

Kent, Chancellor. For a reference of the Constitu- 
tion to the people 3 ; refuses injunctions for oppressive 
purposes to Hoyt and Butler 42, 101 ; 127 ; Butler scolds 
152, 161. 

Keruochan. Joseph. A bank delegate 218. 



Kibbe, Isaac. Ist Buffalo bank president 33. 

King, Charles. Accnse.5 Van Ness of briljery 27 , char- 
acter of V. Buren by 73. 

King, Preston. Agst. bank charters 177; a friend to 
cheap postage 178; 189; 271. 

King, Rufus. V. Buren feared he might not dislike 
Clinton 54; V. Bureu for 70; for universal suffrage 72; 
Parlier on 82 ; Barker, Jacob on 192. 

King, William (of Ala.) Votes for Stevenson 98; and 
V. Buren 112. 

Knower, Benjamin. Stops payt. So 

Knox, John. Liberality of 69. 

McAllister, M. H. of Ga. On Jesse's golden mine 227; 
very original letter to Hoyt, about incorporating New 
Potosi, 228—9. 

McBride, James. A revenue borrowing banker 135. 

McCIure, Gen. Geo. Votes against the immortal 17— 
57. 

McCook, Daniel. Banks, Baltimore Conv'ns and 307. 

M'CoDN, William T. Interferes with the freedom of 
the press 13, 14 : his EauiTY to Hoyt and Butler 16 ta 
18; 14-8; Seldenonl73; decisions of 304. 

McCulloh, Comptroller. His frank 11. 

McDutfie, George. On dis.solving the Union 61; agst. 
Polk's treasury banks 134; ib. 143; notice of 301. 

MacTntyre, Archibald. Against Bk. of America 27. 

McJimsey, Robert. Hoyt, the Trust Co. and 179 
Hoyt's brother-in-law and surety 194 ; 230 . 

Mack, Ebenener. Votes for Buffalo city bank 90 
'goes the whole hog' 179. 

Mackenzie, W. L. 5, 9, 11; Coryell's note to 13, 
Slamm's note to 15; on (;olonial Trade 112; Barker's 
letter to 192; V. B.'s disclaimer 222; warning to Bug- 
land in 1832 — 287; Keim and Johnson on impri.sonment 
290-1. 

McKown, James. Takes jiart with Clinton when 
driven from Canal board 52 ; is jtartner with J. V. B. 
148, 258. 

McLean, John. Argt. for Indians in Supreme Court 
296. 

McLane, Louis, M. C. Gets an embassy 101; takes 
the Treasury Dept. HI; on currency, 120; may loan 
money now 181; Cambreleng agst. his treas. rept. 230; 
agst. alliances in Europe, &c. 279. 

MacNeven, Dr. W. J. V. Buren on 208. 

McNulty, John, Clerk of Congress. Got off by a 
quirk [laws scarce there] 141, 295. 

M.acon, Nathaniel. On executive power 99; on neu- 
trality 284. 

Macy, John B. City Bank Buffalo, and 90. 

Madison, James. Nominated as President in 1812, 4-4 '; 
on U. S, Bank 75. 

Maison, General Leonard. Votes for city b'k Buffalo 
90; on restraining law 176 to 179. 

Mallory, James. His bank votes 38; votes to expel 
Clinton from Canal board 53; and with the immortal 17 
agst. the people 57 ; Marcy on 199. 

Manhattan Bank. 27; a national pet 124 ; a state pet 
139. 

Mann, Abijah, jr. 131 ; votes for pet banks 134. 

Marcy, William L. Borrows at the New Hope 34 ; 
53 ; (irders the Banibers to Ireland 67 ; prayer of, to 
Biddle, for U. S. Bank extensi.m 79 ; Bulfalo Irk and 90, 
91; 99; votes for V. B. 112 ; his niortsr.age message J2.5 
to 127; against 248; anti-slavery, or King pamphlet by 
127; nom'd for govr. 129; legi'lizes bank suspension 
137 ; wheels round agst. hank monopoly 138: buys p't 
of a house 147 ; a new move in banking by Hoyt and 
175; on King and Mallory 199; served on the bench 
till wanted, by V. B. 207; llubbell, fee on sub-treasury 
and 207: Webb on 232; electioneering 2.34-5; Bennett, 
Webb, and Leggett on 235; election of '32— 237; on 
bravery, breeches, barber, &.c. 239 ; ditto 240 ; bets on 
by V. B., 2.56-7 ; nonii'd in conv'n f m custom ho. 257 ; 
blames the merchant'!, knowing belter 258 ; on Ca- 
nada 280, 292 ; foxy 294 ; on Canada 295 ; on U. S. B. 
297. 

Marriages. Crawford for Indian 71 . 
Mason, (Jen. John T. iigt, to Sw't in Texas 260; 
nclice of 261. 
Mason, John Y. Votes on bank deposites 131 and 



Keyc.", IVrley. Votes in Senate to expel Clinton from ] 134 ; and Hgainst Polish exiles 131. 
Canal board 53; v.jte.s with Van Buren's immortal 17— Mny, Will. L., M. C. On land sales, and treasury or- 
57 * bank votes 87. der 263. 



NEW. 



PET. 



Maj-o, Dr. ofVa. On embezzling 149 ; 301. 

Mdxwell, Hugh. Iloyt on 218. 

Ma.xwell, Dr. P. On Albany bank junto 88. 

!\IoHsurers in Custom House, 12. 

Mechanics' and fanners' Bank Albany. Southwick 
president 81 ; Olcott and Worth and 85 ; 94 ; gets mil- 
lions hef. election 126 ; is a state pet 139 ; galled by But- 
ler 160. 

Mechanics' B'k. N. Y. Deposites in 124. 

MsRnHANT.s, AMERICAN. Campbell's distrust of 
191: 19-::; injustice done to by appraisers 223; Marcy 
accuses unjustly 2o8; ill treatment of 271 ; ordered by 
V. Bn's admin, to be struck off juries on matters of 
fij" trade 271. 

Merchants' bank, N. Y. 28; 33 ; Clinton, &c. on 86 ; 
12.^. • 

Mesorole, Abraham. To be hired as a hireling's ne- 
phew 219. 

Meserole, Bernard J. Swartwout on appraisers 223. 

Metropolis, B'k of the. A pet 114. 

Mexico. Jackson and Burr's views about 60 to 63 ; 
Sedgwick and Channing on 03 ; Van Buren's course to 
64,281; Poinsett in 203; 2G7; 279; Beach on 306. 

Miami Exporting Co. 36. 

Michigan Banks Deposites in 124. 

Miller, Jesse. Accepts ofQce, though an M. C. 191. 

Miller, Sylvanus. Made Surrogate 21. 

Ministers of the Gospel. Ought they to be eligible 
to office 1 3. 

Missouri. Votes on slavery in 278, 279. 

Monroe, President James. Fifty-one Feds, joins his 
friends 29; on U. S. bank 76; dispute with V. B. about 
p. ms. 81 to 83 ; to Jackson on Florida war 106 ; and on 
Calhoun, lb. ; against monarchy in N. America 280; on 
Canada 284. 

Monroe, James. Joins natives 174 ; Webb and 225 ; 
236; sneers at good men — deals in stocks 253. 

Moodie, Col. Death of 289. 

Moore, Gabriel. Rejects V. B. 112 ; Webb to fight him 
for that 232. 

Moore, Thsmas P. An M. C. gets an embassy 101 ; 
Van Buren to 302. 

Moore, Col. W. £. 221 ; on Canada 289. 

Morris, Kobert H. His Glentworth case — common law 
11 ; Safety Fund banks, Marcy's message and 126 ; as a 
P. M. 301. 

National Convention. For reform and improvement 
would be useful 101. 

National Debt 144, 145. 

National Intelligencer. On Canada long ago 283 ; 284. 

National Reformers. Their land plan 150; Parke 
GMwiu on principles of 250-1 ; Cauibreleng wanted — 
only to talk 263 ; on stopping monopoly, ib. ; 160 acres 
per family 272. 

Native Americans. The right sort 52. 

Nativeism. Crawford its champion 68 ; Greeley on 70 ; 
Noah its candidate 204. 

Naval Office, N. Y. Improperly managed, very 132; 
results, ib. 

Neville. Major Morgan [Receiver of Land Rev. Cincin- 
nati]. On Burr, &c. 260. 

Nevius, Russell H. On banks and stocks 188-9 ; ditto 
226. 

New Hope Del. Bridge Co. A ricketty concern 34. 

New Orleans. Burr plans its seizure 61. 

New York Constitutional Convention, 1846. 
Remarks on 1 to 6 ; author an early friend to 15 ; Hoff- 
man anil 1.32 ; Van Buren against 305. 

New York Custom House. Facts about the 12; 13; 
133; 147; active partizans paid with plunder at 219; 
families served, ib. ; political appraisers 223 ; Ulshoeffer 
to Hoyt 264. 

tSee also, C. W. Lawrence; Michael Hoffman; Jesse 
Hoyt ; Bleasurers ; Ingham CoryeU ; C. S: Bogardus ; 
S: Sw.artwout; Appraisers: 

N. Y: Evening Post 73 ; 132 ; free banking 138 ; ad- 
vertising 147 ; against Marcy's mortgage 247-8 ; on 
peace 269 ; on V: B: 294. 
New York Observer. On the U. S. constitution 5G. 
N: Y. Post Office. Enormous income of po.stmaster, 
and -large for boxes .301. 

1<! Y: S.ifety Fund Banks: A full account of 84 to 95; 
City Bank of Buffalo, and 90 ; commissioners, a mockery 
69, 90 ; misconduct of bank directors 94; failure of banks 



ib:; V: Buren and N: Y: banks control removal of depo- 
sites 120; 12.5-6; the catastrophe, 136-7^ Flagg on 17G. 

New York Sun: See M: \': Peach. 

Newspapers [see printing]: 74; 147; Agitate through 
178; 182; Argus IC'O ; Ritchie on independence of — edi- 
tors bought up 214, 215 ; Decatur and 221 ; V: Buren 
keeps Bennet independent 245. 

Niagara, Bank of: See Buffalo, Bank of 1816. 

Noah, Mordecai M: On Van Buren 22; on ditto 
and Hudson b.ink 24; on rotation in office 74; abuses 
Jackson 78 ; nominates Van Buren 83; on Cambreleng 
102; onHoffmau 131; grief for Swartwout 133; Butler 
instructs 168 ; malignity of 186 ; Ulshoeffer on 190 ; 
after the printing 192; Crcswell praises 195 ; Van Buren 
ditto 197 ; Van Buren suggests to 200 ; in 1827-8, 201 : 
Van Buren's grief at loss of election of 205 ; Swiss mer- 
cenary 214 ; Ritchie to, on independence 215 ; office beg- 
ging 216 ; borrows by Burrows 223 ; denounces Wet- 
more and hunts fur a general's berth 225 ; kind to poor 
Blair 233 ; editor of the Sun 3ri6. 

Nominations: A mockery of democracy 234. 

North American Trust Co: Hoyt's connection with 
179. 

Norvell, John: Note to Gage 290. 

Nullification: NuUifiers crazy 235. 

Oakley, Jesse [Swart't's surety]: 220, 221. 

Oakley, Thomas J: Appointed Attorney General by 
the federalists 29 ; Jesse's surety for $200,000, 194 ; anti- 
war 210. 

O'Connell, Daniel: 47 ; on Polk and slavery 273; com- 
mon law and 303. 

Office Huntins: 12 ; 22 ; 30 ; 81, 82 ; by Kendall 117 
to 119 ; by John^Van Buren 143 ; by Edmonds, &c: 170, 
171 ; Cutting annoyed by ISO ; Hoyt on 198 ; Codding- 
ton 208 to 214; Hoyt and Swartwout 209 to 212 ; Spicer 
212 ; Ritchie's horror at 215 : Noah at 216 ; Ingh.am an- 
noyed by 217 : Hoyt again, ib: ; Van Buren hunts for 
Hoyt 216 ; a family affair 219 ; more 220, 221 ; Webb 
and Noah 224, 225 j Webb t'other way 230-1 ; Wetmore 
243. 

Official Station. Ought priests to be ineligible to bold? 
33. 

Ogden, Francis: Consul at Liverpool 63 ; defeats 
Cambreleng 101 ; 213. 

Ogden, Henry: On Hoyt's letters 9 ; custom house 
and 133. 

Ogsbury, Francis: Wetmore on 2'13 ; an active politi- 
cian 244. 

Olcott, Egbert: Cashier of Watervliet bank 94: 

Olcott, Theodore: Surety fcr Egbert 94: 

Olcott, T: W: As a security 94 ; 126 ; to Butler on 
pretended banks 157 ; coaxes vainly 160: 

One term principle 111. 

Oregon question: 271, 272, 291. 

O'SuUivan, John L. A contractor 71 ; confesses the 
sins of his party 133 ; puffs Beers's bank 180 ; rebukes 
the slavers 294 ; contemns the cattk 296. 

Oswego, Commercial B'k of broken s. f. 94. 

Owen, Robert Dale. Luminous (!) argument on sla- 
very 59. 

Pakenham, Richard. Calhoun to, on elements of 
public safety 65. 

Parker, Philip S. Speech on V. Rensselaer's appt. 82. 

Parnell, Sir Henry. For Canadian independence 285. 

Partnership, Law. In England 140. 

Party but no Prin'ciple. 29 ; 31 ; Peter Allen, and 
H. Fellowes 51 ; Clinton excluded from Canal Board 
50 to 54 ; the Bucktails 55; Davis describes 80 to 83: 
Montague ou 115: Butler's profession Hgt. 151, — and 
efforts for 168—9; Sutherland's letter on 183; carried 
far 186; Argus in aid of 190; Livingston, Van Buien 
and Thompson 196 ; V. B. on (bets) 205 ; saved by a 
Doctor 207 ; specimens 208 to 214. 

Peace. 136. 

Peace of 1815. Comments in old and new worms oa 
268 to 270. 

Pearce, Dutee J. To Hoyt on Rhode Island politics, 
Potter, Francis, &c. 2."i3. 

Peel, Sir Robert. On English Banking 140. 

Pet, Deposite, or Treasury Banks. Account of 113 to 
126; Jackson admires and is deceived by 11.5, 116; poli- 
tical 115; Kendiill airent to 117; Polk the lending ad- 
vocate of 1.30 to 134 ; $046,754 lost thro' 134; 50 Polk- 
pets now 1-13. 



RIT. 



STE. 



Phelps, Thaddeii^. Clueer six bank and free trade 
letter by 174 ; Livingston on 178 ; Hoyt's surety 194 ; 238 
261. 

Phillips, Joshua. Leaves Custom Ho. 133 ; how he 
and Aaron N. got into it 21(>. 
Prendergast, Jediah. Van Buren and Young's con- 
luct tovvard him 52. 

Blair's picture by 144; at Bal- 



On Church and State Unions 



duct to 

Pickens, Frances W. 
timore 2S)3. 

Pise, Dr. Constantine. 
69. 

Pitcher, General Nath'l. Davis on V. B's usage of 
80, 81 ; on banks 80 ; reason for V. B's nVistrust of 154 ; 
ib. 207 ; in opposition 234. 

Planters' B'k of Mississippi. Deposites in 124. 

Platlsliurgh Banks. 34 ; &4. 

Poindexter, George. Votes ag't Stevenson 98; on 
Woodbury and Hoy 1 149 ; Webb for fighting 232. 

Poinsett, J. R. opposes the Crawford Caucus 55; 
2ij0.000 militia plan by 145 ; notice of203; in lVIexico279. 

Polish exiles. Vote on aiding 131. 

Polk, James Knox. On private pai>ers 10 ; duly ap 
[ireciates the Hoyt corresjwndence — selects Morris as 
P. M. 11 ; rejects Coddington 12 ; keeps Record Clerks 
13; keeps Butler in othce, tho' dishonest; why 35; 
41 ; 47 ; his inaugural on Texas and Slavery 59 ; nativ 
ism elected 70 ; Wetmore and 90 ; 97 ; at h'd of way: 



proyea of Duane's refusal 119; against sub-treaaury and 
for pets 141 ; on militia plan 145; east room and 201, 211 ; 
scolds Noah and turns censor 214 ; pretends to be inde- 
pendent — hired a.*) a state ina<"hine 215; letter on Webb, 
bets, &c. 240; on Canada 285 ; no friend ef V. B. 291 ; on 
Clay, &c. 292; memoir of 298 to 301; violent against 
Jackson 300. 

Rives, William C. In congre-ss, ts. an embassy 101. 

Robinson, Morris. May lend the money of a foreign 
bank 181. 

Robinson, Peter. Put down for honest voting 94 ; 205. 

Rochester, Bank of. Vote on 87. 

Rochester, William B. receives equivocal support for 
gov'r 82; suspicious conduct of V. B. to 201. 

Rogers, Halsey. For 6 million bank 27 ; 130. 

Root, Erastus. Votes on six million b'k and bonus 
27; impeaches Judge Van Ness 28; votes ag't V. Burea 
for bank enquiry 35 ; 87 ; 4? ; for presidential electors by 
the people .57; on a land jobbing bank 114; 183; for Pit- 
cher 208; Webb for 224; Cambreleng dislikes 234; 254; 
on blacks 274 ; anti-slavery 278 ; Spencer to 305. 

Rowan, Judge John, Ky. 200. 

Rudd, Theron. Defalcation of 1^4. 

Ruggle.'i, Ben.j. of Ohio. Rejects V. B. 112. 

Ruggle.s, Phiio. A friend of peace 210. 

Rush, Richard. For Cass as president 104. 

Ru.ssian Embassy [§18,000 first year] John Randolph, 



iind means 9s ; t's Buchanan from Congress &?; 105;!j gychanan, W. Wilkins, C. C.'Cambreleng. G. M 



116 ; notice of 123 ; 124 ; V. Buren's pet bank chain 
pion 130 to 134 ; on Oregon 131 ; pays HotJman all ar- 
rears 131— 2 : refuses aid to exiles 131; opposes sab- 
treasury ViA ; 141 ; is its leading advocate III; checks 
bank enquiry 135; condemns land speculation, but sug- 
gests no remedy 150 ; his N. Y. Dist. Attorney and the 
Patroon 158-9 [and see Butler] ; Butler, Hoyt's sureties 
and 194 ; 271; lat.49° and 272; 's nativeism272 ; O'Con- 
nell to 273 ; on colonial system 279 <; changed 280 ; Noah's 
dislike to, ib. ; dislikes V. Buren 291; his pledges and 
nomination at Baltimore 292 to 298 ; and Blair 300 ; 
chooses Ritchie 301 ; on postage 301 ; Beach, Te.xas and 
306. 
Porter, Governor David. Weed, the bank and 298. 
Po'ter, Peter B. Vote on F. and M. bankSG. 
PosT-iOE. 4; Tyler secures cheap 111 ; advantages 
of 301. 

Post-office. Espionage system in 11 ; Van Buren 
makes political machinery of it 30. 
Powers, James. Votes against city b'k, Buffalo 90. 
Prall, Ichabod. Swartwout on appraisers 223. 
Price, Wm. M. 112 ; 220: Hoyt shuns him 250 ; 257. 
Printing. See Croswell — Leake — Cantine— Blair— 
Ritchie— Southwick — Hill — Evening Post — Newspa- 
jers. 
Private Banking. Flagg on 176 ; Tracy for 1 .9. 
Private Correspondence. Polk on 10, 11 ; Crawford 
on lOo; Cainbreleng's notions of 234; Webb on 23G; 
Franklin and 304. 
Proscription, Political. V. B. for 112. 
Pdblic Lands. How to stop monopoly, and lay out 
new states 150; Jackson desired to stop monopoly in 
263 ; Dallas on 29b ; American Co. 308. 
Purdy, Elijah F. 131 ; 220. 
auackenboss, Mangle M. [surety for SvvartwoutJ 

' Randolph, John. Envoy to Russia lOO ; on U. S. Bank 
129 ; on Canada 283. 

Randolph, Thos. JelTerson. 240 1 on slavery 276. 

Kedfield, Henian J. Votes to expel Clinton from canal 
boaril .53 ; and agst the people, as one of the imniorUal 
17_57 ; votes for parly banks 87 ; Clinton w'd not no 
ininate 203. 

Kee.se, Major. A very honest bank commissioner is 94. 

Reform. Its gigantic strides over Britain and Ireland 

46, 47 ; ib. 272. 
Rejon, Manuel C. On U. S. Mexican policy 65 
Religious Freedom. Increase of, in United Kingdom 

47. Keprcsenialive System. 2. 
Repudiation of Debts. Foreign creditors on 267 
Revoluti.in of 1776. Walpolc an a<lmirer of 48. 
Rigg.'i, Umc. Votes agst. Clinton'.-i removal from the 

canal board 52 ; and to give the people the choice of Elec- 
tors .57. 

Ritchie, Thomas. 12; for Crawford and the U.S. 
bank 78; prophecies truly 83; on bribing M C.'s with 
office 97 to 100 ; SteveusouB case 9^; Cans and '03; ap- 



Dallas accept 100 ; W. J. Duane and S. D. Ingham refuse 
ib. and 110; Adams's motion on 101; Duane and Jack- 
son 122; Dallas and 298. 

Safety Fund. See State of N. Y. Safety Fund. 

St. Lawrence, Navigation of the 111, 112; carrying 
trade via, ib. 

Sandford, C. W. Asks Throop to appoint Wetmore Q. 
M. G. 226. 

Sandy Hill. Beauty, banking, law and Butler, at 151 
to 162; Butler leaves "165. 

Savage, Chief Justice. On Sol. Van Rensselaer 82. 

Seeeders of Scotland. 15. 

Secret Correspondence. 10 to 12. 

Search Warrant 11. 

Sedgwick, Theodore. On Texas 63. 

Seidell, Dudley. Votes aid to exiles 131 ; and agst Polk'* 
pet banks 134; Flag? agst. 173; letter on V.B., Calhoun, 
&c. 226: Stilwell on 227; 231. 

Seymour, Horatio, Vt. Votes to reject V. B. 112. 

Shannon, Wilson. His wonderful despatches and let- 
ters 65. 

Slade, William. Votes agst. Polk's treasury pets 134. 

Slamm, Levi D. Note on reform by 15 ; Customs, ad- 
vertising to 147. 

Slavery op Color — Negro Bondage. Blotted 
out by Britain 47; Polk's inaugural on 59; in Texas 63, 
64; Channing on 63, 66 ; Calhoun on 64, 65; Cambreleng 
on 102: Cass on 10,3, 105; Young on 127, 281 ; Adams, 
O'Connell, Calhoun, Texas, on 272 ; Jackson to the blacks, 
and O'Connell on 273-4; shall bla.?k men vote? 274-5; 
Washington, Upshur, Calhoun and Jeffer.son on, ib ; opi- 
nions on 276-7-^8 ; free labor and 281 ; Wright on 281 ; 
Greeley (m, in Florida 282; O'SulHvan on 294; Bancroft 
on 295 ; Beach ccmdemns Texan 306. 

Smith, Isaac S. (Buffalo stockjobber.) Patriotism and 
bank borrowing 90, 91. 

Smith, T. L.' Objects to V. B.'s Safety Fund 92; Cod- 
dington on 208; wont be P. M. 242. 

South Carolina. Choice of Electors not by the People 
,57; sufferings by the Union 61; votes for V. Buren as 
Prest. 112. 

Southwick, Solomon. Van Buren's friend 22; he de- 
scribes V. Buren 26 ; tried for bribery 27 ; set up for go- 
vernor by a trick 81 ; his removal from post office 81 to 
83; V. B. on his vote 205 ; on Canada 284- 

Speight, Jesse. On Eaton and Jackson 110. 

Silencer, Ambrose. Agst. 6 mill bk. 27; on Clinton 
and Van Buren's course last war 48, 49; rebukes Butler 
166 ; Butler bitter agst. 167. ^ ^ 

Spencer, John C. Agst. 6 mill bk. 27; De TocqueviUe 
by 99; for economy 190; on com. law ,305. 

"Spicer, Genl. P.' W. Place-hunting 213; Wetmore oa 
243. 
Starr, Chandler. Safety Fund report on, by 89. 
State Loans 126. 

Stebbins, Charles. Notice of 93, 94. • 



ULS. 



VAN. 



StevenaoB, Andrew. In Crawford minority oaueus 55 ; 
h )w selected for an ambassador 96 to 98 ; furiously at- 
tacked in Senate 171. 

Stilwell, Silas M. 197 ; wants a pla<^e— notice of 213 ; 
wants more places 220; on S. Cambreleug 226; on Sel- 
den 227 ; for U. S. Bank 241. 

Stockholders of Banks. For liability of 85 : on do. 
86 ; notions about in Georgia 229. 

Stockjobbing. 85 to 87 ; Cambreleng 1C2, 1!2 ; 125-6 ; 
Voung 128; 137,138: $S0,OCI0 cleared 1-12; Kevins ex- 
plains it 189; J. Van Bnren on 251 ; 254-5. 

Stranahan, Col. Farrand. Votes to expel Clinton from 
Canal Board 53 ; and as one of the immortal 17, 57 ; 
bank votes 87. 

Strong, George D. 248. 

Strong, J. H. Saved from ruin in state library 170. 

Strong, T. R. A bank non-receiver 94. 

Sub-Treasury. Polk andBlair denounce it 131. 140, 
142; they admire and support it I ! '. , Hoyt and Allen 
putting it in force [by way of mockery] 139 ; Calhoun on 
140; Jackson against it 141 ; for it! ! ! ; Ritchie is afraid 
of it 142 ; Walker trjiug it 142; Hoyt's 179 ; notice of 
182 ; Marey, &c. on 207 : in war 293. 

Sudam, John. Votes, 1324, to remove Clinton from 
Canals 53 ; and as one of the immortal 17, 57 ; letter 
and notice of 199. 

Sumner, Charles. On negro equality 274. 

Sutherland, Dr. Joel B. 93 ; votes on pet banks 134 ; 
principal follows interest with (a letter) 182 ; notice of, 
ib. ; Cambreleng on 233, 234. 

Sutherland, Judge Jacob. 170, 171. 

Swartwout, Robert. On the Chemical Bank 33. 

SwARTwouT, Samuel. 44; agent for Burr 62 ; for 
Jackson 63,64; embezzles revenue wholesale 133; in 
scramble for plunder 209 ; puffs Burrows 222 ; his effort 
for fair appraisements 223; to Woodbury for nephew 
228; part of his default started Blair 233; letters on 
Texas, to Gen. Houston, Col. Thorne, Breedlove, 259 to 
261 ; his brother's toast 254. 

Talcott, Gen. S. A. Butler on 170. 

Tallmadge, D. B. For free banking 174. 

Tallmadge, General James. Elected Lieut. Governor 
57 ; Wriglit on 203. 

Tallmadge, Nathaniel P. Votes for Stevenson 98 
111 ; on Marcv and Sub-Treasury 207 ; to Hoyt 257. 

Tammany $5ai,0a0 Bank. By Stephen Allen, to help 
chartered democrats 241. 

Taney, Roger B. How to get to be chief justice 76 
122; 123 ; 126 ; Adams's amusing vote of thanks to 135 ; 
opinion on U. S. Eniik to Butler 171. 

Targee, John. Hamilton's $200 and 205 ; 211 



Ulshoeffer, Michael. For bank inquiry 35 ; cunning 
186 ; frank 187 ; letter to Hoyt 190, 19i. 

United States Bamk. Van Bureu party, friends and 
enemies of 74 to 78 ; Monroe, Madison, and Marshall on 
75, 76 ; Van Buren against 105 ; its claim to the deposits 
114, 115 ; Harrison's death stopped a third 121 ; treasury 
deposits and 131 to 134 ; shares unduly affected 142 ; 
Butler against the present one 171 : Hoyt's stock in 
185 ; Nevins the broker against 189 ; Cambreleng's war 
against 230 — wanted Tibbi'tts's plan 232 — a national bank 
233 ; Webb and Noah's loan from 235 ; A. Ward on 
239 ; S. Allen and C. Livingston for it 241 ; Wright, 
Lawrence, Hoyt, iSce. on 247^9 ; the Dallases on 297 ; 
Weed on 298. 
United States Constitution. Its imperfections 55, 5G. 
U. S. Navy. 7 ; enormous sinecure captaincies, &c. 
149 ; Swartwout, note. 228. 

U. ?. Supreme Court. Declare U. S. Bank legal 76 ; 
too costly for the people 303. 
Upshur, A. P. On Te.xas as a slave mart 65. 
Usury Laws, Young against, 130 ; Burke on, 149; 
Flasg and Livingston on. 176; Cutting on, 177. 

Van Men, James I. Van Buren's half-brother, sent 
to Congress, &.C., 21, 22; 190. 

Van Buren, Abraham and Mary. Parentage of Mar- 
tin, 18 to 20. 
VanBuien, Abraham jr., marries, 20. 
Van Buren, Abrahani"(brother of president) 190. 
Van Burbn, John marries, 20 ; attorney to a bank, 
85; might make bad banks better! 94; Marcy's mort- 
gage and message, 125-0 ; 142; notice of, 147-8; iden- 
tifies Webb, is screened by W. T. McCoun. is partner 
with J. McKown, gets $1250 for assisting at Boughton's 
trials ! 48 ; is attorney-general by caucus, ib. : letters, 
202, 205 ; borrows of Hoyt, 244 ; swears and spells, 
246 ; secret hints to— buying stocks— cursing— borrow- 
ing— Whipple, 250; stockjobbing, 2.52-3; betting, 255; 
more gambling, 256; more yet, 257; borrows and specu- 
lates, 261 ; begs Jesse's aid, 262. 

Van Buren, Martin, 7; 17; his birth, parentage, 
connexions, habits, marriage, sons, 19, 20 ; licensed as 
a lawyer— takes cfJice— political moves, 21, 22 ; in- 
trigues for banks, and becomes director of Hudson 
bank. 23, 24 ; sets up as a hard money man, 25 ; as a 
soft, 32 ; Souihwick on, 26 and 203 ; on 6 mill b'k, 27 ; 
appointed Attorney-General, 28; chosen senator for 
Columbia Co., ib. ; voles for Clinton to be President, 
29 ; interferes with the Post-Office, 30 ; swerves from 
truth as to his Bank votes, 31 ; charters the old ButTalo 
bank, 32 ; against a specie clause, ib. ; his and Can- 
tine's bank intrisucs, 34, 35; he puts down Bank in- 



Temple, Robert E. (Adjutant General), brother-in-law quiry, 35 ; saves the Washington and Warren bank 



of S. T. Van Buren. 20. 

Tennessee. Union Bank of, deposits in 124. 

Texas. Polk upon 59; 6l ; Channing to Claj- on 63; 
Van Buren's policy to 64 ; 281 ; Calhoun's course as to 
64 to 66 : 143; Swartwout and 259 to 261; slaverv in 
272 ; Clay on 273 ; Baltimore resolve 294 ; Young on 296 ; 
Ritchie for 301 ; Beach on and off 306-7. 

Thurston L. M. Jes.se's clerk, his brother-in-law, and 
mock surety for §200,000—194. 

Thomas, David. Tried for bribery 27. 

Thompson, Jonathan. Removed from Custom House 
by Jackson 44; at request of politicians 211 ; 216; ap- 
pointed Wasson 220. 

Throop, Enos T. On banks 89 132 ; notice of 207-8 ; 
211 ; voted for United States Bank charter 248. 

Throop. George B. Bank votes, 1829—93. 

Tihbitts, Elisha. Webb on 102 ; 112 ; Bennett on 222 ; 
his banlv plan 232, 233. 

Tompkins, Daniel D. Opposes bank charters 26, 27. 

Tonawanda. Bank of. 91. 

Town,«:end Robert. CrosweU on 147. 

Tradesmen's Bank. N. Y. Vote on 86; a treasury 
pet 124; Barker for 192. 

Treasury Notes. Issued by Van Buren 137. 

Truth teller newspaper. 238. 

Tyler, Robert. Note to Mackenzie 9. 

Tyler, John. 98; national bank veto by 111; votes 
for Van Buren as envoy to England 112 ; on interfering 
with the press 215. 

Ulshoeffer, Henry. Custom House espionage, Boggs 
too democratic, scandal retailed, Shourt the cartman, ta- 
ble talk, Westervelt, bad Whigs 264 265. 



charter, votes against taxing Bank stock, and for tw'o 
bank charters, 37, 38; his mancenvres, ib. ; for Auburn 
Bank, ib. ; abhors bank knavery, 42 ; the right hand 
man to Clinton. 1812, 44 ; for and against a caucus, 
ib.; gives Bleecker office, ib : explanations of his war 
conduct, 45, 40 ; urges on Clinton, then deserts him — 
Ambrose Spencer on, 48,49 ; Clinton expelled from the 
Canal Board, 50 to 53 ; traduces Clinton when alive, 
lauds him when dead, 54 ; his sense of justice, or the 
Prendergast vote, 52 ; on district elections, 56 ; his 
Crawford caucus 55 to 58 ; ditto 195 ; Catholics and 
70; in Ij. S. Senate, 72; on imprisonment 70; on 
internal improvement, ib. ; character of. 73 ; for a U. S. 
Bank and not for it. 75 to 78; petitions Biddle for U. S. 
branch bank. 79; Davis on, 80, 81; regulating the 
Post-Office, 81 to 83; for Clay and Adams, 83; his 
safety fund, 84 to 95 ; eovernor,'88 ; against banks, 89 ; 
Stevenson for, 98 ; selects offices from Congress, 101 ; 
the freedom, 101; claims on France and, 105; Jack- 
son's cabinet quarrel and 106, to 111 ; Crawford intrigue 
and, 108 ; Branch and Webb on, 109, 110 ; goes envoy 
to London, 111 ; rejected by U.S. senate, 112; proscrip- 
tion by, ib. ; elected V. P.. li:*; on pet banks, 114 to 
126; to McLane on do., 120; electioneers, 124; dodges 
votes, 129 ; on bank debts, ib. ; Young for, 130 : for 
and not for b'k restriction, 138 ; for nmney well mixed, 
139 ; sub-treasury and, 142 ; endorses Blair, 143 ; exam- 
ples in style, 144 ; profligate expenditure of 144 to 149 ; 
standing armv of 200,000, 145 ; n)eanness in money, ]4fl 
and ! ! ! ; Bul'ler and, 1.53, 154, 160 to 165 ; toasled ,i«aii 
Erskine, 100; letters of, 183, 184 ; his terror nlKiut SIS, 
185; letters, 186—7—8,190; on Albany Argus, 190; 



WEB. 



YUL. 



V. B. 231, would fight Poindexter 232, his card, ib., on 
Maroy's nomination 235, on private letters 23G, Ritchie's 
oomrilaiiit a;^aiust 210, describes C. W. Lawrence 247, 
bets $4.50l>— 255. 

Webber, Robert. 9, 12, 223. 

Webster, Daniel. Blair censures for giving oflace to 
Europeans 71, on currency 78, on U. S bank 92, vote 
against Stevenson 98, on patronage 101, on slave trade 
105, rejects V. B. 112, on banl^s 114, on Canada 284. 

Weed, Thurlow. Takes Croswell's stronghold 146-7, 
United States bank 298, on land co's. 308. 

Wellington, Duke of. On war 3. 

Wells, Alexander. 126. 

Wesley, John. A missionary in Ga. 296. 

Westchester Politics. A word on 238, Maroy on 237 

Westervelt, Dr. V. H. praises 206, Pitcher upset 207. 

Wetmore, Prosper M. 22, for city bank, Buffalo 90, 
Webb's objection to 224 to 226, Sandford for 226. to 
Swartwoiit about Spicer, Ogsbury, &c. 243-4, on organ- 
izini; board of brokers 2S1. 

Wheaton, Henry. Votes to expel Clinton from the 
canal board 52, for popular elections 57, 169, 189, notice 
of 19.5, 196, on Canada 284. 

White, Campbell P. Votes the deposits to the pets 
131, and borrows out the dollars 135. 

White Plains bank. 138. 

Whitney, Stephen. Against U. S. bank. Why ? 171 . 

Whittlesej', Frederick. Votes against Polk's pet 
banks 134. 

Wicklifte, Robert, of Ky. On e.xecutive corruption by 
V. B. 96. 

Wilde, Richard H. of Ga. Report of, agst Polk's pets 
134. 

Wilkin, Samuel J. Votes in assembly against the 
immortal 17 — 57. 

Wilkin, James W. Vote on 6 mill. b'k. 28 ; 44 ; a can- 
didate for U. S. Senate 70. 

Wilkins, William. Votes for Stevenson 98 ; and for 
V. B. 112; on land bill 298. 

Williams, Sherrod. V. Buren to, 30, 77,88,114: 

Windt, John, and Evans Geo. Their simple plan to 
protect land settlers and stop monopoly 150. 

Wise, Henry A. Admirable expose of Woodbury's 
misconduct by 133 ; votes against Polk's pet banks, 134. 

Wiswall, ' Commodore.' 155, 156, 160, 184. 

AVood, Bradfonl R. Remarks on war, 270. 

Woodbury, Levi. T'n fm congress to cabt. 101 ; on 
bank suspensions 124 ; shameful neglect of important 
duties by 133 ; agt. sub-treasury 141 ; sureties t'n Pm 
Hoyt 194. 

Woodworth, John. Tompkins's casting vote agst. 28 ; 
appointed a supreme c't judge 54 ; Butler on 167; in ct. 
of errors 103. 

Worth, Gorham A. 85 ; Butler on 165 ; 192. 

Wright, Silas. Anti-Renters and 14 ; he endorses 
Butler 41 ; voted in senate to drive Clinton from the 
canal board 53 ; and with the immortal 17, 57 ; to keep 
power far from the People 57 ; bank votes by 87 ; praises 
safet>» fund 93; vote for Stevenson fprinciple involved) 
98 ; oil the pet banks 120 ; on U. S. B'k. 121 ; for and 
aprt. sub-treasurv and pets 1,39, 140 ; divides ' the spoils' 
§2100 to J. Van'Buren tor assijitivg i\t four triaWft48 ; 
old land CO. 18:«, 149 ; to speak strongly for Butler, in 
senate 171 ; Cutting on electing li^2 ; pledge 189; note 
alit. 197 ; political letters by 201 to 204 ; against betting 
205; 208; 213; Bennett and 221; instructs Hoyt and 
246; Godwin on 2.51; Potter and 254; Hoyt and 2.59 ; 
his Texas face 2S1 ; on slavery 301 ; 2 terms and 302 ; 
ou law 3o3; on convention 305. 

YouNO, Samuel. Votes Chenango b'k charter 34 ; 
■18 ; on the canals ,53 ; his opinions, ib. ; on district elec- 
tions 56 ; f )r Oawford and agst. Jackson, ib. ; for Clay 
in 1824, and popiil.ir election 57 ; aids Adams and cen- 
sures Van Buten 58 ; vote on city b'k, ButValo 90 ; vio- 
lent for the deposites 120; notice of 127 to 130; on 
37 3S uhed by Butler H.>yt and Barker as a means of suffrage— for Clay— on banks 128 ; bcps for bank stock 
fleecing the cuntry -.f.l t. 11, Butler'.s 151 to 105. — nom's Marcy-for a two million bk. &e. 129 ■■,'^^}'>f'^ 

Wasson, Geo A. Wants to keep in Custom Ho. 220. debts; ib.; f.r Van Buren 130; bank shares to 131 helps 
Waterviiet Bank. Broken 91, 130. | CroswcU 147 ; Butler had to go for 169 ; opposing re^- 

W 
lor 
142, 
and 
for 



offices in family, ib. ; Barker on. 192 ; on party, 196 ; 
letters on Noah, Clay and Adams — is sure of Craw- 
ford's success— Noah on V. B., 197,193; Telegraph, 
endorsing, visiting Crawford, 200 : suspicious course 
tow'ds Rochester, 201 ; Wright's letter on the spoils 
to, 203; loiters on election of '28, Noah, bets, &c., 204-5 ; 
on Providence, Butler, Westervelt, 206 ; Marcy saved, 
W^estervelt saves, 207 ; Bryan Farrell, Hoyt and, 211 ; 
Noah on, 214; on Hoyt's bad manners, 216; educated 
lioyt, ib. ; on Mackenzie, 222; to Hoyt from London, 
239 ; Webb would fight for, 231, 232 ; Bennett and Euro- 
peans, 236 ; electioneering, 2.37 ; Bennett on— on Bennett, 
245 ; on Swartwout, 250 ; Godwin on, 251 ; on Whigs, 
&c., 257 ; notes, 258; takes Plaindealer, 262; help tor 
God's sake, ib. ; on Amistead negroes, 274 ; Leggett on 
slavery, outrage and, 277 ; slavery in Missouri and, 278 ; 
coasting trade in slaves and, 279 ; Cuba and, ib.; agt. colo- 
nial settlements, ib. ; Canada proclamation by, 280, 289 ; 
on annexation, 281 ; Iowa and, 282; failure, 1840, 282; 
author's imprisonment and, 290 ; for Polk, Dallas and, 
of course, Texas, 295 ; electioneering, 302 ; agt. cheap 
law, 304—5 ; agt. a convention, 305 ; Bank of Hudson 
and, 307. 
Van Buren, Martin, letters by, 30, 70, 72, 79. 
Van Buren, Martin, jr., 20. 
Van Buren, Smith Thompson, marries, 20. 
Vanderpoel, Judge Aaron, votes for Polk's pet banks, 
134 ; notice of— to Hoyt, 262-3. 

Vanderpoel, James (Vice Chancellor), 20; deals in 
slocks, 252. 
Van Dieman's Land Prisoners. 287. 
Van Ness, Cornelius P. 9, 10, 12 to 14, V. B. to 
again.st slavery 279. 

Van Ness, William P. 19, on Society— U. S. Judge, 
New York 23, his clerk embezzles $118,000, on foreigners 
70, in Hudson bank 23 and 307. 

Van Ness, Judge W. W. Tried for bribery 27, 28, 
Butler's opinion of 164, 

Van Rensselaer, Solomon. Van Buren tries to prevent 
his appointment as P. M. 82, S3, E. Livingston on 186. 

Vail Rensselaer Stephen (the Young Patroon). Butler's 
wine debauch with 40, ditto 158. 

Van Schaick, Myndert Van. Voted for city bank, 
Buffalo 90, for national bank 241. 

Verplanck, Gulian C. On bank deposits 131, 185, no- 
tices of 202, 205, note 206, what pledge ? 212, candidate 
for mayor 247, on equity law 303. 

Veto on Laws. Should it not be in the people ? 2, bad 
use of this power by Van Buren 146 to 149. 

Virginia. Valuing Texas as a slave mart 65, Ran- 
dolph, &.C. on slavery in 276, 279, Ritchie and 298 to 301. 
Votes, Voting. Young on 127. 

Walker. Robert J. On Hoyt letters 12, retains Cor- 
yell and Goldson 13. notice of 98, on banks— appoint- 
ments by 99, naval office under 132, Butler and, at Bal- 
timore 294 
Walsh, Michael. A legal contrast 302. 
Walworth, Reuben H. Applies for a Plattsburgh 
bank charter 34, action on weak safety fund banks 90, 
his broken bank receivers 94, his bushel basket 170. 
War. Conventions prevent 3, opinions on 4, 136. 
War of 1812. Duane ou 4, Van Buren and Clinton's 
conduct in 41 to 48, closing scenes in 268 to 270, in Ca- 
nada 283 to 2S5. 

War with England. Brownson on Ml, would stop 
reform there 266, signs of 267, the sobool of experience 
2^J6 to 270, penalties of 270, Moore on 289. 

Ward, General Aaron. Vot^iS aid to Polish exiles 131, 
great electioneerer 2.'i8, 2.39, a idace wanted 239. 

Ward, General Jasper. Votes to remove Clinton 
from Canal Board— takes le.ive of senate himself to save 
expulsion .53, one of the immortal 17, 57 ; votes of 87. 
W;isliinston county factions. Marcy on 237. 
Wa.Khington, George. On slavery 274-.5, 
Wasiii.noton and Warren Bank. How chartered 
Butler, H'lyt and Barker as a means of 




THE LIFE AID TIMES 



OF 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 



CHAPTER!. 

Dedication. The State Convention at Albany. Checks on Legislation. Con, 
ventions prevent wars. Repuhlics should he pacific. Cheap Postage an import- 
ant EducanonaJ measure. The adder's stone. Adininistration of Justice in the 
U.S. 

This volume, like its predecessor, the Lives of Butler and Hoyt, is respect- 
fully inscribed to the Electors of the Convention, which is to assemble in June 
next, for the revision of the Constitution of the Slate of New York. The 
unanimity with which that great measure has been supported at the polls, affords 
ground for good hope that the delegates about to be elected will be united and 
zealous in their endeavours for perfecting those cherished Institutions, formed 
upon popular integrity and intelligence, which the array of facts in these pages, 
under the title ofthe Life and Times of Martin Van Buren, too clearly proves 
to have failed, in many respects,* to secure to the people the practical advant- 
ages of those equal civil and religious rights, which they nominally confer, 
under any administration. The Constitution of 1-^21, was, in some respects, 
like those which iailcd in France, the work of factions ; some of the leaders in 
each, striving so to remodel the instrum.ent as would best conduce to the great 
object in view, the attainment of power and its many advantages by themselves 
and their followers ; but I trust that it is yet reserved to the new world to con- 
vince the old, that men can continue peaceably and happily to subsist under the 
regime of rational liberty and legal equality, with equal and exalted justice 

"The corrcsnondence of Edmiind nurke, lately published, shows what he th()U<rht of popuUr movements, how 
they inU5t be directed, nnd what would be the fate of the people of England, Irpliiiid and Scotland, if no men conld 
be found both able and \vil!in» to bear the heat and burden of the d.iy. The history of Mr. Van Buren and his 
unworthy confederates will show, what sordid selfishness and an amiiition withoiit patriotism and love of virtue, 
can achieve, when united with plausible manners, ;;reat perseverance, skill in the management of parties, and tlve 
tact to amu'ie them with false issues. Mr Burke ivishes to counteract this activity of a few for evil l)y showing 
what may be done by the union of irreat minds for the advancement of the ser.ernl rood. He says : — " To bring 
the people to a teelinj;. to such a feeling. I mean, as tend« to amendment or alteration of system, there must be plan 
and management. All direction of pubWc humor and opinion must originate in a few. Perh.ips a good deal of 
that humor and opinion must be owing to such direction. Events supply materials : times furnish dispositions; but 
conduct .alone can bring them to bear to any useful purpose. 1 never yet knew an instance of any general temper 
in the natiini that might not have been traced to some particular persons. If things are left to themselves, it is my 
clear opinion that a nation may slide down fair and softly from the highest point of grandeur and prosperity to tlie 
lowest state of imbecility and meanness, without anv one's marking a particular jjcriod in this declension, without 
asking a question about it, or in the least speculating on any of the innumerable acts which have stolen in this silent 
and insensible revolution. Every event so prennres the subsequent, that when it arrives it produces no surjirise, nor 
any e.\traiirdinary alarm. I am certain that if pains, great and immediate pains, are not taken to prevent it, such 
must be the fate of this countrv." 



XT NOT EASIUR TO CKOOSK GOOD MEASURSS TH.V.N GOOD MEN ? 



disDftnsed to all. " The rational foundation of all government— the ongni of 
ft rif^ht to govern and a correlative duty to obey— is neither original cxmtract, 
proprietary right, nor prescription— it is expediency— the general benefit of the 

communitv-" , „ , . , i • i ^ 

I hear the people of the United States spoken of, by judges, legislators, ex- 
Pcutives, and authors, by those in, and those in expectation of office, as being 
wise, enlightened, and capable of acting for their own interests ; and as thcy 
«re emnowered to choose presidents, governors, congressmen, senators, shentls, 
Arc their ability to discriminate, to refuse the evil and choose the good, is con- 
o J^ If then brother electors, you are capable of choosing the best men, 
bnw mnrh more so the best measures ! Would it not be well worth the enquiry, 
whether laws of a general character, and affecting every body, ought not to be 
subjected to the .otes of the constituencies before they take effect? Wo Id 
not that be a more republican check on such wholesale wickedness as the ife 
of Van Buren discloses in legislative halls ? The^veto of a Jackson, a Tyler, 
or a Van Buren, may be right-so may that of a Bouck, a Marcy, a For er a 
TU..OOO or a Wri"ht-but is it not anti-republican ? The governor of this 
•f.t« m.d the president of the United States have monarchical power-they can 
resist-veto-and often do resist the will of the community as expressed by a 

""t'i^e'oligarchv of Venice, the doge was only a member of a council-he 
could not oppose "the will of the majority; but under the monarchical pa t of 
our system, fhe governor or president, surrounded by power, patronage and place, 
in aic-fof influencing a re-election or choice of succession, can oppose a measure 
wh the people niay require-this opposition cannot be g°t^-;;^;fby the vote 
nf a maioritv of their representatives— it can only be overcome by a vote ot 
two to one w h Oe he immense patronage of the courtsof Washington or Albany, 
and often ;f both of them united for one object, is available to prevent that vote. 
I have been a close observer of the workings of legislative bodies-was long 
an aeSe member-and have ever been a warm admirer of the i-epi-esentative 
svs'em Tokstruct the delegate, where the law is passed wuhoutthe veto 
system, xu uis _ , essent a , but the check is imperfect 

S.en make up his n.ind, and while doing this to instruct him to vote and argue 
n thiTway that; t; oblige him to reason and vote, it may be agams tV^^ 

''^S^':u"lfs'!:c.r|o;:mt br'he? 'Sllrs: avo yo. „ot a,so capable of 
iudRinror ." to-s ofa bill agreed upon by your -P--n.a,,ves wl„.her . 
i for The public interest that it should booo.ne a '^''';' ,f^,*^!"^,'Ce deenW 
and as these paROS will show, often have been ™'™r>f^l' „» f^,X|/„72 
wounded your feelings and trampled on your "g'\«;, J'7„f:,;='^,i.°g " ,blie 

ZoMmi be^r^ in your hands than in those of any president or gove nor 

provident legislation-there would be no need o tie '^^^ ^''lll^'^^^^^^^ 

down to the'^choice of representatives residing m he ^^'^^/^Xuher nShe^ 

-that question mi;;ht be safely left to their own discretion. Neithei need 



CONVENTIONS OF THE WISE AND GOOD MAY AVERT WARS. 3 

to be restricted from choosing an honest minister of the fiospel.* Acquaintance 
with the law of God is as safe a qualification for a republican legislator as an 
intimacy with R. H. Morris's unknown feudal usajres practised at midniphton 
Pearce's household a few weeks before the defeat of Martin Van Buren, ui the 
fall of 1840. The idea of submitting questions as to measures or rules of ac- 
tion, to the opinion of the people in their localities, is not new, but has been of- 
ten acted on. De Witt Clinton, Chancellor Kent, and the other members of the 
Council of Revision, in 1821, wished the amendments to the constitution that 
might be made in Convention, to be submitted, one by one, separately, to the 
people — and they were right. 

I look to national and state conventions, elected by an awakened people, as 
the best means of averting wars. Once I would have risked war to free Cana- 
da — now I would not risk it to gain territory anywhere. When in Canada, I 
had less time for study and reflection than within the last four years ; and al- 
tho' I dont like the cowardice that skulks in a corner, or drops on its knees, nor 
a system that aims at governing by dollars and lies, to which war is preferable, 
forthere, in the groans of expiring humanity, man may learn to speak a natu- 
ral and true language ; yet would 1 do much to avoid bloodshed. Is not a duel 
a national war in miniature 1 Did Aaron Burr's superior skill and practice in 
firing at a mark, by means of which he murdered General Hamilton, prove 
that Tie was right in sending the challenge, or that in the matter in dispute he 
had justice on his side ? Surely not. And do not national wars, after ruining, 
killiiitr, maiming, and butchering vast multitudes on both sides, usually termi- 
nate in favor of the Aaron Burr like power which is strongest and most skilful, 
or involve other nations in the struggle, and not seldom bolster up a bad cause, 
at the expense of the quiet of the world ? Well said Horace Walpole, " I had 
rather be a worm than a vulture." 

" If I could avoid, by any sacrifice whatever, (said the Duke of Wellington on a 
memorable occasion,) even one month of civil war in the country to which I was 
attached, I would sacrifice my life in order to do it. I say that there is noth- 
ing which destroys property and prosperity, and demoralizes character, to tho 
detrree that civif war does; by it the hand of man is raised against his neigh- 
bor, ao-ainst his brother and against his father ; servant betrays master, and the 
whole scene ends in contusion" and disorder." And what would a war between 
two peoples; speaking one language, having one common origin, believing in 
one God, professing the same Christianity, be, if not a civil war ? How are the 
hundred millions of happy, benevolent, joyous creatures who will soon fill this 
country to be held together under the flag of the free ? Only by acting justly, 
honestly and faithfully towards each other, and towards the world, and '• to 
brutes resigning carnage." 

"We were the proprietors of this paper sometime before the commencement 
of the war of 1812, and were the advocates of that war, [say Gales and Seaton, 
m the National Intelligencer,] believing its declaration and prosecution neces- 
sary. We were young at tiie time, it is true." Now they are old, they present 
us with a picture of slaughter and devastation from which the mind recoils with 
horror. '• At the conclusion of a ten years' war, how are we recompensed for the 
" death of multitudes and the expense of millions but by contemplating the suddsn 
«< "lories of paymasters and agents, contractors and commissaries, whose equi- 
" pages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like exhalations?" After 
Napoleon's glorious victory at Austerlitz, Baron Larry, the emperor's friend 
and surgeon, cut off 1400* human limbs, and then the knife fell from his ex- 
hausted hands. France had made Napoleon dictator — after the piece of Amiens, 
the money, the armies, the press, and the people were in his hands. He had sworn 

* I have no desire to see pastors of congreffation'? sent to legislatures, 



4 WAR OF 1812. CHEAP POSTAGE. WATERLOO. 

;L\Vsdme°;ndt.tH-f ' "'^""^'' ?' ^^--Pl°y-' «" hi^ i^nuence to obtain 
the absolute and 1 ered tary property of a power of which he had received but the 

^T^xal tTcf:T\ n° J'^'^^'^l '^"^ '^ ^'-^'-^^ ■- will-he annex d 
EurlTto h s nm, . ' r °'''^.°"'- ^']^ ^'^^ ^^^•^'^"'* C"^^ ^"d California of 
Tnr uL.? jountry-forgot nght in the power of his might, and where is he, 
and vheeis h,s empn-e? Perhaps the Code Napoleon, "soon, I trust, to be 
surpassed m ut.luy by the codes civil, penal, and of p ocedure, in N Y is 
the proudest, best, and most enduring moiument of his name ^>- ^v is 

srern oemocpl'v'^''' "'"^ ^'''^' ^« ^^knowledge the disinterestedness, patriotism, 
T)J1J7T^\ a.K,accurHce means of knowledge possessea d^ Loi. \y u . 
Duane, the ir.end of Jefferson ? Hear his account of the war of 1812-1 quote 
the Aurora of August 17, 1816. ^ 

thp'3' '^'^^^'^'■ '"^f ^'''/^''■^y «°"S'<^ered, as it regards every thing-but 

con u ;:rthe i:. 1 "• ^"'°''' ''■'''' ^^"^ ^"^ ^^^ -ilitia-one'of the'..; 

woilcl ever san . The system of loans was a most villainous systematic cheat 

nw"' ImS'tr'^ '^'V '°"^^"^'' °"-^'^^ '^ '^ recorded'ii'n-egistr of 
intamj. Imposture, perhaps, never ran such an uninterrupted career as for 
seven years past m the general government and that of Penn^svlvania '' 

1 might have begun my narrative of Van Buren's Life and Times withont 
BuUhe'rrf °^^"^'-°i-^-- , Every leaf shows that such a toTrir^e i eT 
tanned that iTr' V7 ?'' " ^''"^ '^ '^>' "^^'''^^^ '^'''^' improperly ob- 
IblateTcnnfii ■' ^ ' -^ ^'^''l ''^''^' °"-''^ ^° '^^^'^ b^^» kept secret- 

Violated confidence reposed in me-done things not warranted bv law custom 
and the proper usages of society. Of those who say this, there may be "hose 
Tre^^ttrs "Z"'h' n-"'t •™^'^' '' "^ ^-at injustice, 'as the^e un'doubledi; 
me ^itiroh onuv J "^ '' '^'' "l^^Z"' ''''y explanation, desire to cover 
me with obloquy, however unmerited. To the fbrmer of these two classes I 
here present that explanation which, in my former volume or pamllet! would 
have been partial and premature. painpniei, uouin 

One of the best educational improvements of the age, in the difiusion of a 
cheap literature, is not overlooked when this hook is Ji^sented in 1 e J^.h test 
and nriTir '"' '" ^' '""'"^"^'^ ^'"■°' '^'' Union at small expence, by ma 

t^2r LZ:7T"' ,^-17"^t"'"^/^'"^^^ '' '^'' P-P^« «f deep and lasting 
impo.t. Honor to those bold and manly spirits in Congress who stood up for 

We narJaf ' '^'""^ ° "''^'^'. ^^"°-'^d.-, the instruction of the millions! 
nlnt^^ hi, T, ^''pi^ ^^Jf'-^os and navies, fortifications and the imple- 

en^d bv hp v"'"r' 7' f "n' °^"^"'""^ forbearance and good will, strength- 
kbdin^thn '/""'' ^-endenng them dependant on all? shall unite nTan- 
wars s^.. IopT ";[ ""'''[f ^ brotherhood. Cheap postage will survive, but 
wars shall cease-the world will become "the United States,- America aye 
foremost in the glorious work ; the various climates, soils, products and diversi- 

naS 'tr^ulno^ '::^':: :i;:' Z^. ^^:r ^f " "^.--entions a,ul wi.e rcn.r,n. be a surer road to that 
pearcf,,! an<l |.roM,erou commcrre 3 1 Vn , battle ? Nations. like individuals, pet excited, abandon a 

the battle of Waterloo : '"""""'"' "'""'""• J"^' hearken for a u.omeiit to Dr. Durban of the inetliodist church, or 

o.zt^r(l.^„Sil.r;!r^So/';hrH;;" f''^'?j"' '"t'^ = "■« j^--''- •« -"•- '^ --i- - ""« of ..loir 

consti.utional frendon m Kurle But low u2r 1 t .V"' "" '""".V'""" ""^^ con.siderod the only barrier to 
of En,.!a,„l foufTht to maiiUa n' he de „ n. of H ' , ^ T'""?" '""'^ ''^' ^""''^'"^ °" """ ''»>•• The /r.c™^, 
rnler,-,o restore the reores^taiive ^' T ~, I r?'~ ^ " ''^"^'^ ''^"'''^ "'"'« ''^^^ ch,„ce'of their 

had ned before the M.-ii,'of the Peo,.le Tl e Pr, ,h ' ? V?-" \^'"r/"' "■'''"'' ^"^ ^^"* """'• »'"> f™'" "^ich he 
bring back the suay of the e.u if' Hut f tli^n ?"^'""'*. '^"""'" '" ^^'=''^" ">« 1'""^^^ '"' ">e Pope, to 

and the aristocracy of En'iri knew for L 1, 7 ''",' '',^"'^«''- ">e loaders ,vere not.' The allied sovereigns 

with the .econd overthrow orVaZleon Thev 1 n """^^''^'V,',"';; '''''"^y ""'l'^'' "'« ""' "'" P'ineiple, Nvould end 
victory which hi, countr^n^n an tallies /aS^fwatc^^ '"*?'" '^"''"L ""," ^^^^ ^''^" '"^ ''«"'' °^""' 

me t,, put back the clock of l/u world sUdf^rec^- ' " "'^'' ^^"^ '"'"'* "'"^ '^' "■*'""' '*^'"*'' '° 



PROFANE LETTERS. THE ADDER'S STONE. 5 

fied seasons, each contributing their part of the means of comfort, content and 
felicity to a renovated millenial world, in which " the harsh dull drum shall 
cease, and man be happy yet." 

Like the word of God, against which it has been wickedly objected that there 
are many indecent relations in it, there are none in this book that have not been 
necessary for their exposure and the execration of wickedness ; and by their 
merited punishment in the contempt and indignation of the public, a due cor- 
rection will be administered, 0:5" like the records of the divine warnings, 

(Kir OR JUDGMENTS AGAINST SINNERS, EVER CONNECTED WITH THE 

0^ ACCOUNT OF THEIR SINS. The sim is not to be blamed as the au- 
mor oi mai siencn wmcii arises when he siiines upOfi putnd substances, 'i'ho 
surgeon is forgiven the wounds of a necessary amputation. The sickness from 
medicines is a happy token of returning health. 

If there is a sense of real religion remaining with any one among those that 
are here exposed, amidst the profession that has been made by some, public in- 
dignation, the law of God, call for sackcloth and ashes, repentance and restitu- 
tution. Let such a penitent as Benjamin F. Butler imitate Zaccheus the 
publican, the patron saint of custom-house officers, and say " Behold Lord, the 
half of my goods I give unto the poor; and if J have taken any thing from any 
man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold !" 

The greatest of all modern political writers has wittily observed, with respect 
to an important measure brought into the British Parliament by the present head 
of the ministry of that nation, that, as the poison of the serpent is said to be 
counteracted by a stone that grows in its head, so the corruptions of that gov- 
ernment have-received a salutary check and shall eventually be destroyed by 
the operation of that bill which compelled the Bank of England to return to 
specie payments, the work of one whose family and himself have risen into 
power and consequence by the operation of the fictitious paper-money system of 
1812, of which he has been the unconscious instrument of destruction, in the 
hope, as some say, of giving it strength. 

The sagacious Scots have gone yet a little further in their ideas concerning 
the counteraction of poisons. It is a traditional belief among them, that, at 
certain times, all the adders of the moors, assemble to form, from their slime, 
an incrustation called an "adder's stone," which receives its crowning beauty 
from the king of the adders passing through it and leaving on it the trace of all 
his shining glories. Happy is the shepherd, that at a safe distance beholding 
the operation, waits till all is finished, and then courageously steps in and 
secures the prize. He is henceforth held in the highest respect, as possessing 
an infallible antidote against a deadly poison. But he does not gain the prize 
Without considerable risk, being pursued by all the venomous brood, and obliged 
.0 seek his safety in flight. If he does not throw some one of his garments to the 
adders, to occupy their attention and divert their rage, they cease not their pur- 
suit till they recover their lost treasure, or obtain the body of their plunderer. 

Thro' zeal for social and political reform and improvement, I have been in- 
volved for the last eight years, in difficulties too well known to need recapitula- 
tion — but would rather endure adversity than enjoy the unmerited honors which 
traitors to liberty may now be wearing. During an involuntary exile, I made 
this land m}'- residence, and being acquainted in a good degree with its early 
history and the excellence of its political institutions, it grieved me to find that 
complaints not less general than just and true, had been made against their ad- 
ministration. That to which my attention was turned when a stranger, could 
not fail still to attract it, according to my love of freedom and desire to promote 
the common welfare, when I became a citizen. When this second book, as the 
fruit of my labors, is before the public, it will be acknowledged that I have not 



6 ARE THE FOUNTAINS OF JTTSTICE PURE? 

been altogether unsuccessful in my attempts to expose abuses and the authors, 
in the hope that tlie people's representatives in Convention will discover and ap- 
ply a remedy. While in the employment of the state in the Custom House of 
New York, I obtained possession in a way the most honorable, as all must ac- 
knowledge, with pure motives, and by means the most innocent, of that which, I 
trust, will prove an adder's stone. 

But the serpents that were employed in its formation, with more pertinacity 
than the adders of my native moors, have not been content with the cloak that 
I threw to them, the necessary covering of a former work. Ii was to be expect- 
ed that the whole brood would hiss and rage, as they had not raged and hissed 
for many a day before ; yet I scarcely thought that one of them would have 
ventured to follow me, even into the sanctuary of American justice, the high 
court of equity— but, from some recent decisions there, many seem to expect 
that I shall be given up to the chilling, slimy folds of the reptile tribe, to share 
the fateof anotlierLaocoon, who was strangled before the altar by serpents, while 
warning the Trojans against the wiles of the Greeks. 

Electors of Delegates to a free Convention, the proceedings of which may 
deeply affect the welfare of the world, what an important trust yours is ! That 
the fountains of justice are corrupted, that reform is wanted, all admit. " It is 
time (says the Courier and Enquirer) for the community to take this matter in 
hand." " Judging from the history of various parts of the country for some 
years past (continues Col. Webb) it is our opinion that with $20,000 a man 
might commit any half dozen crimes that can be named, short of murder, and 
evlnthat, if he happen to have pretty influential friends, and to be within reach 
of pretty convenient judges." " True, every word of it, (says the Herald.) 
The list of criminals who" have escaped by means of wealth and influence aur- 
ing the last six years, would astonish every body. What has become of the 
Vircrinia professor ? Where is Levis the forger ? Where is Dabney ? Robin- 
son,''jewell. White, all escaped." " Men who are opposed to the banking in- 
terest (says O'Sullivan, the new made Regent of the University,) may indeed be 
elected to congress, or to a state legislature, but seldom without a severe strug- 
gle : and, after they are elected, they are exposed to dangers of corruption, as 
o-reat as any the members of the British Parliament were exposed to in the days 
of Sir Robert Walpole. In the.couRTS of justice they have perhaps a more de- 
cided ascendancv than in the legislative halls ; for most of the judges are mem- 
bers of this privileged order ; and the governors of many states are niere in- 
struments for the promotion of their purposes." The Globe, while Van Buren s 
organ, spake of "judges, who in too many instances, show that the boasted in- 
dependence of the judiciary is only an independence of common sense and com- 
mon justice." Polly Bodine was accused of a murderthe most foul— her tnends 
were wealthy— she "had a first trial and a second— a third was set on loot, and 
because some judge or other had " laid down a rule in Burr's case, 40 years 
since, 0000 tradesmen were taken from their avocations, a heavy expense en- 
tailed on the county of N. Y., and the case put ofi" by Judge l^-dmonds, thus 
wearyino- out witnesses and mocking at right, on the plea that among these 0,000 
men, twelve could not be found who were not unduly biased and unfit to try the 
cause upon their oaths ! Is it not time that scenes like this, discreditable to he 
a-e and to our institutions, should cease ? If the law is a science it is capable 
of bein- scientifically and practically arranged ; and if it is not, the freedom ot 
our institutions is an idle dream. Corrupt the fountains of justice to any peo- 
ple, and wliat need they care for forms of Government ? 

It is threescore years since Jeff"erson wrote " The times will alter-our rulers 
will become corrupt-our people careless. The time for fi.xing every essential 
ri'Tht on a le^al basis, is while ourrulorsare honest and ourselves united, riom 



THE CONVENTION HAS A GREAT WORK BEFORE IT. 7 

the close of this (the old) war we shall be going down hill. It will not be ne- 
cessary to resort every moment to the people for support — they will be forgotten, 
therefore, and their rights disregarded." Is it not so now ? The woe, wretch- 
edness, insolvenc3^ poverty, pain and anguish, of hundreds of thousands of our 
fellow citizens and their families, whom the gambling spirit of the age has ruin- 
ed within the last seven years, is a warning voice, telling the democracy to come 
to the rescue of all that is valuable in their loved institutions. Far spread must 
be that demoralization which in a land of abundant natural resources could ex- 
hibit in one city and district, one hundred and twenty millions of dollars, the 
debts of insolvents and bankrupts, blotted out as it were with a sponge. This 
volume describes Van Buren and his band, the great first cause of this accumu- 
lated misery — it appeals to facts — it unveils the past. To your wisdom and 
unanimity it is that the generous and the just must look for a remedy, in the coun- 
cils of the delegates of a moral, virtuous and enlightened community. 

Could the people of N. Y. state have read the insulting commentaries of the 
admirers of European systems on the Somers tragedy, and the unusual features 
developed in the evidence given before a court martial, in presence of which a 
captain of the U. S. Navy, hesitated not to avow, that when about to launch 
three of his fellow men into eternity without that trial of their alledged offences 
which our laws seem to guaranty, he had told one of them " that for those who 
had money and friends in America there was no punishment for the worst of 
crimes" — could they have seen the deep and severe rcgi'et every where display- 
ed by the friends of progress abroad, while perusing details which indicated a 
condition of society less favorable than they had fondly hoped could exist here, 
they would rejoice at witnessing, as they have, the vast majority who united to 
rebuke Van Buren's doubts by calling together the convention of 1846. That 
body will, I trust, lay its heavy hand on the knaves mentioned by Jefferson, who 
'•'set out with stealing the people's good opinion, and then steal from them the 
right of withdrawing it, hy contriving laws and associations against the power of 
the people themselves." 

The letters of Van Buren, father and son — of Butler, husband and wife — -of 
the Livingstons, Hoyts, Aliens, Lawrence, Cambreleng and many others, cannot 
fail to be read with profit. I would fain hope they may prove an adder's stone 
in this community, aiding somewhat in preventing the baneful influence of Van 
Burenism from continuing to overshadow the state and union, thro' its special 
organization of all that is cunning, pharasaical, greedy and heartless in this 
Republic. 



CHAPTER II 



Matthew Henry and. Samuel Young on the duty of citizens and christians in dis- 
covering secret wickedness. The avthor's position. Robert Tyler. Governor 
Van Ness. The Van Buren, Hoyt and Butler Correspondence. Proceedings 
about if. StejJs taken by Messrs. Van Ness, Bogardus, Goldson, Coryell and 

I others. Copies shown to the President of the U. S. and Secretary Walker. 

• Action of the Government. Van Ness loses, Coddington misses, and Lawrence 
gains a Lucrative Office. Polk's Bank Committee of 18:U. Recorder Mor- 
ris on the Bench and in the Post Office. Secretary Forward and the 17 Mea- 
surers. Ingham Coryell persecuted for daring to he honest. Disreputable con- 
duct of S. P. Goldson. 

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Bible is a work of sterling merit — full 
of interesting and useful information, and of fine thoughts clothed in language 
which has the eloquence of simplicity and truth to recommend it. 



8 SAMTTEI- yOTTNG AND PiAtTHEW HENRY ON SECRET WICKEDNESS. 

Tn the 59th chapter and 4th verse of Isaiah, we find the text — " None calleth 
for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth '"' — and Mr. Henry has made an excellent 
comment on it, and so applicable to the course 1 have taken with Mr. Van Buren 
and his associates in public life, thro' this and former publications, that I copy 
it, as follows : 

" No methods are taken to redress j^i-ievances and reform abuses ; none calls 
" FOPt JUSTICE, none complains of the violations of the sacred laws of justice, nor 
"seeks to right those that suffer wronger to get the laws put in execution against 
" vice and profaneness, and those lewd practices which are the shame, and 
" threaten to be the bane of the nation. When justice is not done, there is blame 
"to be laid not only UDon the magistrates thai should administer justice, but 
"UPON THE PEOPLE THAT SHOULD CALL FOR IT; PHlVATtJ 
" PERSONS OUGHT TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE PUBLIC GOOD BY 
"DISCOVERING SECRET WICKEDNESS AND GIVING THOSE AN 
"OPPORTUNITY TO PUNISH IT THAT HAVE IT IN THE POWER 
" OF THEIR HANDS ; lut it is ill with a State ivlien princes rule ill, and 
" the people love to have it so. Truth is opposed, and there is not any that pleads 
" for it, not any that has the conscience and covrage to ajjpear in defence of an 
" honest cause, and confront a prosperous fraud and wrong." 

My lives of Hoyt and Butler, had, I believe, an immense circulation — and I 
find them referred to, now and then, in the Senate of N. Y. Yet is it not mor- 
tifying to see how much more astonishment is there expressed that I should 
have published such statements as are in that book, than that such state- 
ments could be published ? 

Col. Samuel Young, in reply to a reference to my book, by Mr. Wright, 
Feb. 4th, 1846, spoke of it as " a book surreptitiously obtained and surrepti- 
tiously printed, and which he (Wright) now thinks it honorable to quote from, 
for the purpose of injuring such a man as Benj. F. Butler." The Colonel's 
code of morals were not quite so much Butlerized in 1825. He had then no 
desire to screen successful knavery and honor the delinquents. 

During the discussion of the state road bill, that year, (I quote the Alb'y D'y 
Advertiser,) General Root censured the Canal Commissioners, and hinted that 
the people's money had been squandered on their favorites. Col. Young replied, 
that '•'■ if the General knew of any dishonest conduct on the part of the Com- 
missioners, and kept it a secret, HE WAS A TRAITOR TO THE PUBLIC 
FOR NOT HAVING EXPOSED THEM TO THE WORLD." The Gen- 
eral's rejoinder was very appropriate, but mv object, in referring to these con- 
versations now, is to show how anxious Samuel Young is in 1846, to uphold the 
dishonest president of Jacob Barker's Sandy Hill bank, and to censure me for 
having followed his excellent advice to Erastus Root in 1825. 

I now proceed to show, that the book which has given so much uneasiness to 
bad politicians, was neither surreptitiously obtained nor surreptitiously printed. 
The materials came into my hands, with the consent of Mr. Van Ness, Collec- 
tor of the port of New York, Mr. Bogardus, his Assistant Collector, Mr. Gold- 
son, his Keeper of the Records, Mr. Walker, Secretary of the Treasury, and 
Mr. Polk, President of the United States. The importance of the subject will 
justify me in publishing, at this stage of the proceedings, a clear and distinct nar- 
rative of the main facts. 

In 1842 and 1843 I was actuary or agent for the corporation known as the 
Mechanics' Institute, City Hall, New York, where my services received an un- 
animous vote of thanks. 1 miglit have continued, with the approbation of all 
parties, hut resigned in the fall of 1S43. Certain leading citizens of foreign 
birth applied to Mr. Robert Tyler, son of tlie then President, to provide me with 
a'situaiion in the custom house — this they did without iny knowledge orsugges. 



CURTIS, TYLER, VAN NESS, MACKENZIE. THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 9 

tion. Mr. Tyler being at Howard's hotel, sent Mr. Sweeny of Philadelphia to 
asic me to call upon him. I did so, and he enquired whether I would accept an 
Inspector's place (-$1 100 a year.) My reply was that I would. Next day he 
told me to wait on Collector Curtis, who would place me in office, and I did so, 
accompanied by a director of the Institute. Mr. Curiis was very polite — said 
I would have the place, but that the warrant or papers had to goto Mr. Spencer 
at Washin"-ton. Difficulties were raised afterwards, arising out of my very 
peculiar position with reference to England, but I believe the President and his 
sons were sincere in their wish to oblige my friends. The following note is a 
proof of that : 

" W. L. Mackenzie, Esq. — My Dear Sir : I have just had an opportunity to 
" read your letter of the 22d April. I am always glad to hear from you, al- 
" tho' 1 find it impossible to be a very punctual correspondent. Colonel Graham 
" [then P. M.] is expected here to day, and I shall urge your appointment upon 
" him. If any accident, should detain him in N. Y., take this letter to him, and 
"tell him from me, that there is no man in New York I had rather see him 
" provide for by an appointment in the city post office than Wm. L. Mackenzie. 
" My own feelings would be highly gratified at your success. Very truly yours, 
"Philadelphia, A.pril 2Sth. Robert Tyler." 

Altho' the note was of no use, the kindness of heart displayed by the youth- 
ful writer, to a person who was poor and an exile, and had no political influence 
or weight, was very gratifying indeed — and when Mr. Van Ness became col- 
lector, I was nominated as an inspector, but, as Mr. Spencer had objected, his suc- 
cessor took the same view — and on reflection, I cannot venture to assert that it 
was not the more discreet course. I was then placed in the Record office, which 
had that name given it in burlesque, I presume, for it was the most confused col- 
lection of papers on a mammoth scale I had ever beheld during the half century 
of my existence, nor did I hesitate to write a note to the collector in which I 
frankly told him so. 

In 1840, Mr. Van Ness wrote me from Burlington, Vermont, a very compli- 
mentary letter with reference to a newspaper I was then publishing at Roches- 
ter. He wrote a second from N. York, and enclosed a year's subscription. 
Being requested by the President's brother-in-law, and son (with his father's 
approbation,) he showed no unwillingness to give me a situation. For some 9 
or 10 months, thi'ee clerks were employed in beginning to arrange the Records, 
of whom I was one ; and as I found many remarkable documents from time to 
time which were no records, I copied whatever of such interested or amused 
me. Six months befere I left, Webber, the chief clerk, had privately informed 
the authorities that I was copying papers; and in March, 1845, I drew Mr. Bo- 
gardus's attention to some of Hoyt's and his correspondents' stray productions, 
by sending or giving them to him. I also asked Henry Ogden, the old cashier, 
to mention to Mr. Hoyt that many curious papers of his were turning up. Mr. 
Ogden said that he had told him this twice, but that Hoyt replied that he had 
left nothing that he cared for. 

When f)articular papers or books were wanted, we had some 200 or .300 
trunks to search, all of them the property of the United States, and some of them 
open, others locked — some with keys and some without — some with an assort- 
ment of all things, pious and impious, official and unofficial, from 1739 to 1844, 
and others exhibiting some efforts to attain method and order. I said then, and 
I now repeat, that the confusion visible everywhere was in keeping with the ac- 
counts of Hoyt and Swartwout — it could not have been the result of accident. 

I must speak plain — how could it be avoided ? " To reform and not chastise 
would be impossible — the wisest precepts would be of little use unless fhere 
were examples to enforce them. To attack vices in the abstract without aim- 



10 THE HOVT AND BUTLER COERESPOKDEKCE. 

mg at persons, would be safe fighting indeed, but it would be fighting with 
shadows." 

Mr. Bogardus, with consent of the Treasury, had thousands of pigeon holes 
made, to hold papers as fast as vve could sort and arrange them. He gave his 
orders to Samuel P. Goldson, a political friend whom he had introduced from 
the 8th ward, as the keeper — they were very intimate, and Goldson considering 
Bogardus as his patron, did nothing without consulting him. On the l5th of 
iVIay, Goldson told me that Bogardus had ordered him to break open, examine 
the contents and remove to garret, the Custom House Trunk marked ' J. & L. 
Hoyt's Law Papers.' I suggested to him, Mr. Coryell, the other clerk, being 
present, not to break it open, but to let the men carry it to the garret, for we had 
the carpenters at work, and many loose papers. He replied that his orders 
were positive — took a large screw driver, called Mr. Stansbury, a carpenter to 
help him, and they broke the screw driver twice, but opened the box. I had 
had an idea that the papers of all Hoyt's remarkable custom house law suits 
with the merchants were in that box, the contents of which were immediately 
thrown upon the floor among other miscellaneous documents, and afterwards 
carried in baskets to the attic. That box contained a part of the letters of the 
Van Burens and Benj. Butler, but it is evident from Hoyt's affidavit to the chan- 
cery bill, that he knew very little about it. The box was not Hoyt's — Hoyt 
was on record as having embezzled $220,000 — the papers were in possession 
of the government, but not being official, for the words ' Law Papers' were a 
blind, we might have burnt them or swept them out. He had told Ogden he 
didn't want them, or to that effect ; and if he had wanted them, I should have 
done my best to thwart him after I ascertained their character. I knew that 
Goldson would tell Bogardus instantly what sort of law papers we had got at, 
if indeed he did not know before he ordered the box to be opened and examined, 
a'^.d it is presumed he did not, for, as he says in his letter, the box was doubtless 
ordered to be opened as many others had been, that we might look in it for some 
important papers then required by the authorities, for which we had vainly 
sought elsewhere. 

In presence of Ingham Coryell, and with the full and entire approval of 
Goldson, the keeper, I began to copy as many of these papers as were of a public 
character and fit for the public eye ; and as a gentleman whom I had known 
for many 5'-ear3, and who had held lucrative and important trusts under the U. 
S., was about to leave for Washington, I called on him, shewed him the copies 
I had taken, gave him many duplicates, and requested him first to show them 
to Mr. Van Ness, and then carry them to Washington, and let the President 
see them, as they concerned the public welfare. Another of the clerks appears 
to have informed him about them, and desired him to tell the Collector that I 
was copying them, with the keeper's consent ; and that altho' he had remon- 
strated, i was also allowed to take such of them away to be copied as I thought 
fit. The Collector was very fully informed on these points by this gentleman, 
and sent for me, but was engaged when I called. About this time I was told 
privately and also saw the notice in the Morning News, that President Polk 
had promised General Dix that Coddington, being recommended by him, Cam- 
breleng, Butler, Van Buren, and the rest of the faithful, was to have the Col- 
lectorship, and tliat Governor Van Ness, who had tried hard to elect Mr. Polk, 
was to be thrown overboard without ceremony. I told the gentleman who car- 
ried the papers to Washington, to mention to Mr. Polk where they were from,* 



*Mr. Polk's committee to search the U. S. Bank, 1834, F. Thomas, Chairman, demanded of the bank the private 
letters of members ol' congress to the bank president, or any bank officer, and all unanswered letters from M. C's. 
during the previous two years, whether about u new charter or the private transactions of such M. C'», with the 
hank— und Iho' not a lecret committee, they dematided the books of the bank, not merely to inspect them, but to 
do bo in secret, tuking lliem out of the liftud» of the direcluo, and they asserted their right to carry them where thoy 



A DISCOVERY ' DULY AfPRECIATED IN THE RIGHT QUAETEE.* H 

and how, and requested that there should be no concealment as to what I was 
doing — and he did so. 

Mr. Hoyt has had hosts of witnesses before three successive city grand juries 
to get me indicted on account of these documents — but in vain. We shall see 
whether I meritf;d the abuse and slanders that have been heaped upon me. I 
think not. I did everything fairly and above board, and even sacrificed the 
petty office I held, with my^income, time and means, and also borrowed money, 
that I might be enabled to lay useful truths before the people previous to the 
era of a convention. A mercenary soul, situated as I was, would only have 
considered how much money he could alarm the guilty hypocriies into paying 
for the destruction of the evidences of their shame and dishonor, thus placed 
within his control. 

On the 1st or 2nd of June, I received the following note from the gentleman 
to whom I had given many copies to be shewn to the President. It was franked 
"Comptroller's Office, J. W. M'Culloh," and had the Washington postmark of 
the 31 St of May. , 

" Washington, 30th May, 1845. My dear sir ; I received your letter ex- 
"planatory of the reference in one of J.' V's [John V. Buren's] letters to Hoyt, 
"and thank you for the information it gives. The discovery of these letters 
" seems to be providential, AND IS DULY APPRECIATED IN THE RIGHT 
" QUARTER. All will go well. I will be glad to hear from you, and on any 
'■' occasion, in which I can serve you, write to me without reserve. You will 
" find me ready to render you any aid in my power. Yours Truly." 

pleiised They actually issued their general warrant to compel the production of all the letters that had beea 
Cvrilten to the banii or on private or pubUc business with it, for themselves and others, within two years, intending 
ch the same with the view of instituting a criminal prosecution against the writers or receivers. All this 




attachment, imprisonment, and infinite distress; a search of books, a search of letters, and an examination on oath 
of the persons implicated, touching the mutters whereof they are suspected. In what does such a warrant difler 
from th.ise issued under the 1st Charles and the 2nd James, for which, among other things, Scroggs was im- 

Recorder Morris, now P. M. of N. Y., selected by Mr. Polk and his cabinet on account of his principles from 
amoii" 400,000 citizens, held that the end justified the means in the case of Glentworth ; descended from the bench 
of his'criminal court, joined the mayor, and the two started oif to the quiet dwelling of a private citizen after the 
mid'ni"ht bout— told him he had in his possession a sealed package ot papers the property of a party then absent— 
and compelled him to give it up under a threat that they would then search his bed rooms, study, closets, chests 
and drawers, and take it by force. They had no warrant— no oath, general or special— no sheriff was present, nor 
a deputy— no not even a constable. Pierce was not sworn as to his knowledge of the contents of the packet, or 
asked whether it contained the evidence of Glentworth's guilt. Judge Morris' real object was to find aid towards 
the election of his party leader, Van Buren— his immediate purpose was to prove the probable guilt of persons 
against whom no charge whatever had come betbre him as a judge, by means of papers which even District^ Attor- 
ney VVhitin" and 1$ F. Butler had not chosen to keep when they had them ; these papers, too, the property ot a man 
whom their'"f:iend Judge Edmonds had privately warned to go away, after he had taken them home aad perused 

Messrs. Morris and Varinn said that they did all this officially ; and when Governor Seward asked Morris \vhat 
authority he had for his midnight march to Pearce's, he replied that much of the Common Law in force here had 
never been printed any where ; that Lawyers knew the unwritten parts of the law ; and that these parts would be 
found to sanction his e.vpedition to Pierce's after private papers. Attorney General Hall flatly denied that the folks 
of New York live under a code of unknown laws, never yet set in type, or written with a pen. "The extraordniary 
doctrine of the Recorder, (said he) that some portions of the Common Law have never been reduced to writing, 
and are not to be found in any book, is equally novel and untenable. Lord Camden says, " the names and nghU 
of |)ublic magistrates, their power and forms of proceeding, as they are settled by law, have been long since written, 
and are to be found in books and records." If Mr. Morris is right, common law is like dog law. Pompey oftends 
me and gets whipt. He remembers the whipping and avoids the offence. A man does a meritorious act— is brought 
before Judge Morris and punished for it, by virtue of laws, which Morris tells him that nobody but Lawyers ever 
heard of and which many of them declare to have no existence. If judges and lawyers cannot agree as to whether, 
in 1845, the laws of N. Y. state are or are not written, how then can they agree as to what the laws are ? Yet this 
is the man whom President Polk has selected to take care that the seals of the letters of the people of N. Y. and 
their corresuoiidpnts he not vi:jlated for political or party purposes '. Is it not in character with his maiden choice 
ol B. F. Uiitlcrl If 40 British ministers have stooped to the petty larceny policy of the administration of a 
Fouchfe. confounding principle with precedent, and moral law with legal custom— if all the 40, including Peel, 
VVellmgton, Canning, Goderich, Melbourne, Palmerston, Russell, Graham, and Aberdeen, and all the lord lieutenants 
of Ireland, have, each in his turn, caused letters passing thro' the postoftice to be secretly opened, read, and resealed 
by stealth, with counterfeit seals— and they do not deny it— what may not be expected from as convenient a post- 
rriaster as Morris, who adheres to a code of law unknown to his countrymen, including it is presumed the British 
practice to which I have had reference ? In the case of Hoyt, the documents were in government boxes, and Hoyt 
a.\\ embezzler of the revenue, who had escaped the penalty of the sub-treasury act by a quibble— they were mixed 
up with hundreds of tons of official records— were unsealed, indecent, unbecoming, and left in the custom house 
because too iioUuted to enter u ptivate mansion. 



12 THB CUSTOM HOUSE, ITS INMATES AND THE SEC&ET LETTERS; 

When I afterwards saw the writer, he informed me that Mr. Polk had perused 
the letters, and been informed where and in what manner they were found ; and 
that the effect they produced on his mind was such as to induce him to depart 
from his original purpose as expressed to General Dix. He said that he would 
not give the office to Mr. Coddington, but would appoint a man of his own. I 
have seen a pretty accurate statement of this interview in the National Intelli- 
gencer, written by its N. Y. correspondent, M. L. Davis, who did not get any 
of his facts from me. Ritchie did not contradict Davis's statement, nor make 
any remarks upon it. I sometimes think that it was by way of an offset to these 
anti-Van Buren movements in May and June, that The Union abused me so out- 
rageously when my book appeared last September. 

Horace Walpole repeats a saying of his father, Sir Robert, "that but few 
men should ever be Ministers, for it lets them see too much of the badness of 
mankind." Mr. Van Ness was, I thought, a kind-hearted man, and all the Ver- 
monters I had met with, spoke well of him, after he had been their governor. 
I would have been glad, if he had kept his ground, but he was less fitted to deal 
with the host of crafty place hunters who surrounded h;m than Lawrence, whose 
cold, phlegmatic, calculating temperament, and mind turned toward stockjob- 
bing and lucre, will remain undisturbed, where Van Ness v/ould almost shed 
tears of pity. I have been in the anti-chambers of Kings and Governors — and 
have witnessed the levees of the Colonial Rulers of forty colonies, in Downing 
street,' but never on earth saw anything so formidable, yet humiliating to human 
nature, in the way of besieging power for place, as in the Custom House of N. Y. 

On the 3rd of June last, a friend wrote me in confidence from Washington, 
that Van Ness was superceded, and Lawrence, the choice of the President, and 
1 wrote my resignation the same day and sent it in. The Collector sent for me 
twice that month, and bade me stay on account of my straitened circumstances 
and large family. I declined, my mind being fully made up that I had a duty 
to perform, effectually to uncloak the knaves who figure in part of this corres- 
pondence. Nor was it any great sacrifice, for I had the smallest income of any 
clerk in the C. H. Webber and Everett were removed for their political opin- 
ions, with about ten minutes' official notice, and I was ordered to instruct Gold- 
son and Coryell, their successors, in their duties, which I did. We had pre- 
cisely the same v/ork to do, yet I was paid 8200 less than the one, and $300 
less than the other. The treasury regulation seems to be purely political, and 
Committees of Congress, named by their party Speakers, are altogether a delu- 
sion. Seventeen men, called Measurers, get $1500 a year each, for doing worse 
than nothing. Secretary Forward proposed to abolish them, but iiis whig cabinet 
was air built, and it soon vanished. The N. Y. Custom House is the most pow- 
erful piece of political machinery for neutralizing opinion and controlling elec- 
tions, to suit the i'ew, that I ever saw or heard of in any country. De Witt 
Clinton's celebrated warning on that head, is indeed a truth. 

It is a curious fact that neither Bogardus nor Collector Van Ness, ever spoke 
a word to me about the Hoyt correspondence while I was in office. During 
every spare moment, from the l5th of May till July 1st, I copied from these 
relics of Van Burenism, at my desk and dwelling house, with the keeper's ap- 
probation, and, as it appears, that of his superiors also, whom he and Coryell 
had carefully and properly consulted. Had they objected, I must have desist- 
ed. The power of dismissal or censure remained in Messrs. Polk, Walker, 
and Van Ness, or cither of them, but no one said a word. They doubtless 
knew that it would have been highly criminal to conceal such unequivocal 
proofs of turpitude from an abused people. Mr. Walker examined the letters 
with great care, and both he and the President were glad that so much con- 
cealed villainy had come to light. So far from being displeased. President Polk 



BOW WERE THE LETTERS OBTAINED 1 13 

promptly acted on my information, being justly indignant at Coddington's at- 
tempt to head General Jackson, as shewn in page 214, No. 179 of correspon- 
dence.* 



*Talk of violating private confidence 



furnished me witli such full means 



lence ! It was in prosecution of my public duties to the state that providence 
tor the exposure of its enemies. VVInle "Salus populi, suprema lex ' remains 
the l-iw of God and man, a rule to regulate our conduct towards ourneighbors, and the practice according to which 
has been approved by posterity in the case of every blessed reformer who has left his toil on earth for his reward 
in heaven, what could I have been, but one of the worst of traitors, if I had spared those enemies that were delivered 
into my hands ? 

Let then Jesse Hoyt, the tool of these plotters, let their hirelings the poor newspaper hacks, Ritchie and Heiss of 
Ihe Union, Blair and Kives of the Globe, Noah of the .Sun, Bennett of the Herald. O'Sullivan of the j\ews French 
& (;assidy of the Atlas, Croswell of the Argus, the Solomons of the two Posts, here and in Boston the Tr'ov Bud- 
get, and Senator Mack, with other more obscure drudges, the bearers of official burthens, on whose "ailed shoulders 
their masters have often ridden into power over the necks of a betrayed and insulted people ; let them all rejoice in 
the partial victory which they have obtained, thro' VV. T. McCoun, in hindering the circulation of mv former book 
for a time. Let the sacrifices which they have already made in the temple of mammon suHice, in gettm" a neigh- 
bour, in some cases, to burn a coj)y for which he may have paid, but retaining iheir own like the flesh which the 
heathens took from the altars of their gods to sell in the shambles. Let every covetous christian purchase it and 
every jew, as hallowed at that shrine where they all mutually and lovingly worship every Saturday and Sabbath 

The fear of losing his office, when Lawrence came in, must have been the motn e that induced Goldson to lelf 
and persist 'ii a falsehood, in this mattar. When I had stated in the Tribune how 1 came by the letters Goldson 
replied as follows : ' 

" Mr Mackenzie says :— ' With the consent of Mr. Goldson, the keeper, I publicly copied, whenever I had spare 
"time, such of those letters as I thought the public ought to see (omitting private passages ) and (as iMr. Goldson and 




- - - . _ , - -Jiy , 

ledge." 

.\s reference was made by Goldson to the third clerk, Coryell, I also appealed to him, and here is his answer 
dated Nov. 12, 1845. ' 

" W. L. Mackenzie, Esq.— Sir: In reply to yours of to-day, I feel bound, under the circumstances, to say that I 
"have read in the Tribune vour statement and Mr Goldson's reply, and THAT UPON THE UNPLEASANT 
"ISSUE THUS MADE BETWEEN YOU, YOU ARE CORRECT. Resp'y yours. INGHAM CORYELL." 

Mr. Coryell Is well connected, and came to N. Y. highly recommended by the governor and many leadin" men 
of the democratic party in Pennsylvania. Goldson, on the 14th, wrote in the Tribune, " I repeat that the statement 
of Mackenzie is in every particular false — false both in fact and sjiirit." Rumor has it that he swore to the same 
effect before several grand juries. Again, on the 18th, Goldson wrote, that "certain gov't papers v^-ere wanting 
"and the keys to sundry gov't cases and boxes, in which it was supposed they were deposited, were lost. Mr! 
" Bogardus ordered these gov't bo.xes and cases broken open and the papers arranged. One of them was found to 
" contain hundreds of letters addressed to Mr. Hoyt." He goes on to say, that he got a new lock and key ; and 
that, with his consent, neither Coryell nor myself opened that box afterwards ; but if this had been true a part of 
these remarkable disclosures had never appeared. 

As Goldson and Coryell are both retained by Lawrence in the same department, to this hour, with the consent of 
Mr. Polk and Mr. Walker, f copy Coryell's statement of Nov. 25th, from the Tribune, as follows : 

" Mackenzie, Goldson and I were the only clerks in the room ; Goldson was the senior and gave Jlackenzie per- 
mission to copy the letters ; / believed, but did nut know, that he intended to publish them, and "told Goldson that he 
did wrong in giving him the permission. Instead of aiding him to co[iy them, as Goldson charges, I, through a 
friend, told the Collector that Mr. Mackenzie was taking cojiies, and that he, the Collector, ougln to enquire^into 
the matter. Mr. Van Ness sent Mr Bogardus, who is the personal friend of Mr. Goldson, to'inake the inquiry. 
He did inquire, and he reported that it was all right; and so far from fearing that he would lose his place for 
permitting him to copy the letters, Goldson, alter he knew that Mackenzie was about to leave the office excused 
him from other duties, that he might make extracts from papers in the office, which Mackenzie has used in his book. 
1 refer to the published letters of Sir. Van Ness and Mr Bogardus, to prove that my statement as to them is true" 
and knowing these facts to be so, Goldson now says that he could not but know that he should lose his plaee, his 
livelihood, and alieniate every friend lie possessed by the conduct charged upon him. Now I reply that he did not 
then think so ; Mr Van Ness and Mr. Bogardus were then his friends, they knew tlrtt he wns the senior clerk in 
charge of the papers ; they knew that Mackenzie was copying these letters with Goldson's permission or connivance 
and took no steps to prevent it, and (Joldson knew this." ' 

On seeing this, Bogardus gave Coryell the lie in the most plain terms, in the Tribune of the 28th of Nov.— saving 
that his statement was " an unblushing and malicious falsehood." Messrs. Polk, Lawrence and Walker continue 
to avail themselves of his services also ! ! 

But the calm and intrepid youth kept his ground ably and fearlessly ; and I trust that his love of truth, and con- 
tempt of office and $1000 a y<.»ar, if to be dishonestly held, will yet be honored by the a|)probation of the noble 
hearted and virtuous among his countrymen. On the 29th, he stated in the Tribune that the moment I began to 
copy the Hoyt correspondence he requested a gentleman of great respectability to mention the fact to Mr. Van Ness, 
v.'ho did so— and he refers to Mr. Van Ness's letter of Sept. 25, where he states that he had been informed that I 
had found sime important private correspondence of Hoyt among the archives, and had caused Bogardus to make 
a private examination, who reported that the papers were of no apparent consequence— and to Bogardus's published 
rtird, where be says that the documents were of no consequence, and not worth taking away. Bogardus went to 
Goldson, who had laughed heartily at Butler's mock |)iety, and Van Buren's cursing and gambling, but he never 
opened his lips to me, nor did Goldson ever mention to me that there had been a search or'an enquiry. Coryell's 
last epistle closed the correspondence in these words : 

"I am made lo appear as the partisan of Mackenzie who, by the publication of his book, has arrrayed against 
him an influence powerful in this community. My accusers have enlisted themselves as the tools and instruments- 
cf those who are laboring to arraign Mackenzie for felonv, of which they know him to be innocent, by way of pro- 
tecting themselves. I am not his partisan— I had no agency in the publication of his hook— 1 have iio iiiterest in 
sustaining him. On the contrary I am well aware that what I have said in his favor will provoke against me the 
ill will of men whom I have no wish to ort'end, but Goldson and Bogardus have placed me in a situation where I 
am compelled to speak the truth or else do as they have done, bear false witness asrainst Mackenzie. * * * t 
* * * * * Mackenzie's book is an exposureof men who have held important financial and political posts; 
men having great weight and influence in society and with the Government. Among those assailed is the present 



14 THE author's apology IOR THIS VOLTOIE. 

C H A P T E R I I I . 

The Author's Apology for pubUshing the Butler and Van Bvren Correspondence. 
Constitutional Reforms urgently required. Governor Wright and the Anli-Retit- 
ers. L. D. Slanun. Jesse Hoyt's extraordinary Chancery Bill and Vice-Chan- 
cellar JSP Counts still more extraordinary decision about it. Benjamin F. But- 
ler's profession of Piety. Mrs. Butler, a Politician. Van Buren^s vacillating 
Policy. What may he considered Literary Property in these times. 

With such opportunities as I had of making these disclosures ; suffering as I 
have suffered in the cause of liberty ; what an incurious creature must I have 
been, what a simpleton, not to have opened my eyes to that which was so plain- 
ly spread before my view ; what a traitor if, when 1 possessed it, I had courted 
or received the reward of silence ; if I had kept silence ! No ! trusting in 
the coming emancipation of the human race from all the former restraints of 
misrule and oppression ; already seeing in the words of the ancient heathen 
poet in accordance with the prophecies of scripture, " a new order of things 
beginning;'' already seeing a long continuance of peace among the most civil- 
ized nations, and the progress of the arts rendering the former advantages for 
war worthless ; either tending to secure a continuance of peace or to end war 
in one hasty general struggle ; seeing even many of the creatures that were 
placed in subjection to man, and whose necessary attention to them in some 
measure humanized mankind, rendered unnecessary, supplanted ; seeing all 
things prei)aring for tlie greater happiness of mankind in a universal reign of 
love, should I not do what I could to wipe off the reproach of this land, as fail- 
ing in the experiment of self-government, through the remnants of ancient fraud 
that still remain amidst that glorious progress which we once seemed destined 
to make in the career of improvement among the nations ; the last but the best 
form of government far outstripping them all ! 

How must the heart of every sincere patriot be sad to see the Declaration of 
Independence nullified in so many cases, if not in very state, by the state 
Constitution, in what is it not disregarded in the practictl working of it I Who 
would not grieve to see, amidstthe late troubles of one of our smaller States, 
instead of the great political parties in the others suggt^sting aught as an effec- 
tive remedy, fomenting the quarrel and triumphing in its progress, for the sake 
of political efloct, without any measure for the full establishment of those equal 
rights to w!)i(;h the whole nation is pledged in the sight of God to one another, 
before thw world ! Who would not grieve at the success with which the guilty 
often escape through the meshes of law in this State, and the innocent are 
overwhelmed ; to see a governor proclaim the injustice of certain usurpations, ad- 
vise their abandonment, but yet hold out the terrors of the law against {hen viola- 
tors ; to sec men condemned for murder that are said to have taken the life of 
one that came to oppose tiiem and execute an unjust law! To see such things, 
and here find so many felons go " unwhipt of justice," assisted in their crime 
and their escape from its due punishment through that imported, foreign, feudal 
legislation, and those relics of ancient fraud which seemed to have been swept 
away in the spring-tide flood of the revolution ; yet here, carried back and settling 
down upon our shores in every ebb and flow of tlic change of parties and pre- 



Ti. Hector, whose .-ipiKiinirnent lias clinngeil the relations between Messrs. Goldson, Hosiirilus nnil Mackenzie. 
Hofore this, Mr. (JoIiLmim ynve Miickenzie pprinis.sion to copy the letters, nnd Mr. Hiij;iiriliis cnnld find "nothing 
of im)iort,mce in the iimtior," hut now none londer than they in denouncing' Mackenzie. f)cniinciation is not 
enough ; they, or oiio of tht-m, ut least, have fjoiin before the grand jury fur the pnrpose of bavin? hini indicted for 
a (iJlony. \Vliy is this ! Is it not iiiaiiifest that that which wis of •' no impurtancc" under Mr. Van Ness, in their 
eslimnl'ion, has' heuiuie u fclonv under Mr. Lawrence 7 .\iid is it not e(iunlly manifest that all this zenl against 
Mackenzie ori?inates in n hnse and groveling desire to conciliate the Collector at the e.vpeii'.e of trutli and honur ! 
, « * .y 4 * ♦ I do nut stop to enquire what are the collector fLawrcnce]'s opinions or wishes. I dare 
he lior.i'i-t und ►peak the lr\ilh, Iti it pleuse or ofTeiid whom it niuy. 1 hope 1 urn done with Mr. Bognrdus. 

' INGHAM COKYKLL." 



THK CONVE^'TION — PRINCIPLE — L. D. SLAMM. 



15 



tended reforms in the framing of constitutions and the revising of laws ; if not 
ready to wish for the abrogation of human laws, and with a trial of a jury of 
our peers, the palladium of liberty, in a court where only the enlightened con- 
sciences of good men and their sense of honesty should be allowed to affect the 
decision in pronouncing sentence according to the evidence; how must I have 
been excited to do at least what was put in my power, to afford a demonstra- 
tion of the truth of sacred writ, " that the love of money is the root of all evil," 
and to call upon the people of this state, in prospect of holding a convention, to 
reform and perfect its constitution; and of all the states; to establish more 
checks, and henceforth allow of no office holder but by their direct suffrage, of no 
nomination but with your full knowledge — and to permit no one elected to legis- 
late in any pecuniary matters regarding his own pay or whatever else may con- 
duce to his own personal and exclusive advantage ; but to enjoy his salary ac- 
cording to the appointment of the people, in his election ! Such are the nrinci- 
ples in which I have had tiie happmess to be indoctrinated ; * principles that I 
know not if they are fully carried out in practice among any society of men 
but the Seceders of Scotland, a church strongly attached to Democracy in cleri- 
cal government, and which I may call my mother church, having been born and 
baptized in it. 

Whatever motives of disappointed ambition, whatever motives of self-seeking 
and hope of future favor may be imputed to the author, he is conscious to him- 
self of the rectitude of his conduct, and, that, in due time, it will be approved 
by every sincere lover of his country's welfare, by every one that reckons 
himself bound to guard the republic against injury. If it had been revenge 
that had prompted him, he might have had that long ago in matters that more 
nearly related himself; but, when he considered himself able to serve the pub- 
lic, he overlooked personal injuries, and instead of being the opponent of the 
party, the worst part of which reckon themselves chiefly aggrieved by this pub- 
lication, he became its advocate and pleaded its claims to State and National 
power as far as he was then deceived, and, as far as he reckoned its proposals 
preferable to those of the party that then defeated it. 

Laboring for the good of whatever land it has been his lot unrler providence 
to inhabit, amidst the ill-treatment which he has received for the want of suc- 
cess in a cause at least equal to that for v/hich our revolutionary ancestors of 
this nation, are justly honored ; marked and proscribed with a price set upon his 
head, equal to that at which some of the most illustrious of them were valued 
by the same government ; the last anions all the survivors of that ill fa,ted stn)jr- 
gle, that has not obtainea a paraon and an allowance to return to his untorfeited 
rights and property ; were he to be crushed now by such an attempt as Hoyt, 
Butler, Van Buren, and their supporters have made, how would tyrants rejoice 
and the lovers of rational liberty lament, reckoning the refuge of the oppressed, 
the dungeon of the free ! 

Is it to be supposed that I should destroy my fair fame, lay aside every prin- 
ciple of honor, sacrifice a life-long reputation, and disregarding all consequences, 



* When the question of a state convention wasSrsI spoken of, I wrs in the Mechanics' Institute, here, and wrote 
many articles in its favour, tho' net over my own signature. Levi D. Blanim, a trusted editor of the Democracy, 
or perha|is of their artful and selfish leaders, has, during the last three years, bestowed much abuse upon me, and done 
ineall the injury he could with the people. Himself the son of a German fither and an Irish motlier, he descended to 
denounce me as " a foreign renegade" thro' his press. Let his private sentiments, published by his consent, stand 
as a reply to the slanders of his journal. 

"William L. Mackenzie, Esq.— Dear Sir: I thank you for your attention. The article you allude to never came 
" to my possession, else I should certainly have published it. lie assured that the fears you intini;.te do me iniustice. 
■' Innately a Democrat, 1 can never forego the utterance of truth from any mutive ol policy or expendiency. A 
'• pressure of business — the warm interest I have taken in municipal refor.ni. as the columns of the Plebeian will show, 
" the various subjects which arise every day requiring some record of opinion — and the little assistance I have in 
" the conduct of my journal, is my e.xcusk for not entkri.ng positively into the contemplated Con- 
' STiTDTroNAL Rekot.m (jlestion. Ycur friend. Levi D. .Slamm," 

•• June 20, 1843." 



16' ^ HOYT, BTTTLEE, AND THE COURT OF EQCITY. 

like "amadmap . firebrands, arrows and death," not caring thougl) the 
greatest and noL niple ot' human liberty ever erected, should be burned up, 

if I should obtain a name ? Far from it ! An admirer of the jrlorioiis principles 
of the Declaration of Independence ; hoping to find the practical effect of such 
liberty here, as a Knox had established lor the Church in my native land, and a 
Buchanan pleaded for the state ; the practical working of the true political prin- 
ciples which a Locke furnished to the immortal author of the full draught of 
the Declaration of Independence; hearing this government praised by every 
lover of liberty ; living under oppressions myself ; admiring everything good, 
and carefully endeavoring to excuse everything evil in the working of the re- 
publican system ; engaged at last, as is well known, in a desperate, (though for 
the time,) an unsuccessful, attempt to transplant the same institutions into a neigh- 
boring region ; was I not accurately to mark its workings according to my op- 
portunities ; and when made to feel its evils so bitterly as I have experienced in 
my own person ; was I to content myself as an idle drone in the Custom House, 
sucking the honey of the public hive ? Far from it! I endeavored to improve 
the opportunities which were there furnished, and the leisure which the present 
arrangement of the public service allowed, for the benefit of the public; and 
here is the result of a part of my labors. 

But, in an attempt to cloak up again the villainy and fraud which has been 
exposed, here we have a defaulter to the public, an embezzler of the revenue, 
that should have been glad to have retired from view into 'h? shades of those 
jungles which it is now becoming fashionable for public nioj to court, after a 
certain period of office, where they may live like wild beasts that drag their 
victims to their dens, to devour them and fatten upon them at leisure ; there he 
should have sought to spend, after " a youth of labor, an age of ease" with 
his guiltv companions, instead of darkening a court of justice with his presence, 
or deafening it with his complaints. But, " Oh ! shame, where is thy blush !" 
his claim is allowed, sanctiened ; and letters by the lovers of stock-gambling and 
betting on elections — on the best mode of intriguing for office, and how that 
office should be used, not for the public weal, but to subserve the basest and 
most wicked personal and party purposes — of the easiest way of robbing the 
widow and the orphan by an artificial and corrupt upholding of a rotten bankrupt 
Banking Institution — letters composed of langu;ige and epithets the most blasphe- 
mous, the demoralizing tendency of which cannot for an instant be doubted, evea 
by the most liberal reader — these are adjudged worthy of the protecting mantle 
of an EQUITY court, as literary property, and the booksellers enjoined not to 
sell nor permit the public to read the Lives of Jesse Hoyt and Benjamin Butler.^ 



* Lenving Ibr a time. Mr. V. Buren's ready tool, let us cnst a look at the principals, tlie chief con-spirntors amoi)» 
their accomplices in guilt. Pee one filling for a time a high legal station, in which he must tremble nt the blast of 
public indignation, when the cnnfineil wind of the Custom House, that Eiilns Munufiictory of jmhlic opinion, has 
been let out at the proper (juiirier, no longer belched forth from the thronts of its greasy demagogue? ! Pee him 
with a carria^'e beyond mo.st of tlie traders in politics, early making a profession of religion : not waiting till retire- 
ment from oHice to be trammelled by the restraints of sect, but all the time using his religious (irofessioti as a cloak, 
pretending " to be denied to the world, but following the mammon of unrighteousness with a step as steady as time 
and an appetite as keen as death." 

If there are certain pictures so ludicrous, acciirding to the description of the poet, to see which, when admitted, 
must furnish a subject for unrestrainable iiiughtcr ; how could it be thought that \ conlil restrain my indignation 
when the opportunity was allc>rde<l mo of perusing the evidence which such a nnin furnished against himself I Then 
see liiB nearest relatinn in life, his other self, a woman, of whose se.T it has been said, that ' retirement is the gre.itest 
glory, and, that one famous, is infamous ;" how lias she courted notoriety to herself among the accomplices of her 
male, by her share in this Family compact of corrupt politicians ! Who could withhold from her the gratilication 
of enjoying that loving association which she has courted, of furnishing another jiroof of the old adage " No plot 
without a woman ;" of iittraciiiig the adinirmg multitude to the charms of the heroine of the piece, a tragedy to the 
jiiihlic, hitherto a comedy to them t 

It has lioi-n said that the name of the Devil himself ought to be nientioiied with reverence, as we are not to 
speak evil of digiiitie«. l-'iich a principle must he supposed to lead to some restraint in speaking <d' one that once, 
though unworthilv. tilled the higliest station of honor in this land. Uut surely this should not hinder his being al- 
lowed to speak fiir himself. In tlie word of (Jod we have many records of tlie sayings of the devil as well as of 
wicked men. The author of tin* book owes thattcharacter nothing : I mean not the devil but the other. Or if he 
owe« him anything, he is glad of the opportunity of discharging the obligation, of paying in this a second instalment. 



"^■' tITEKARY PKOPERTY DEFINED IN THE CITY HALL. 17 

Could that be property to any one which had not only been abandoned but 
could be of no use to him when recovered ? In my book, the letters that 
are claimed have their fitting place ; separated from the context, they must be 
regarded as the sweepings, dross and rubbish of literature, utterly worthless. 
Literary property no more could they be than the certificate which some skil- 
ful physician gives to a pauper cured of the diseases produced by vice, to be 
exhibited along with his scars to excite the sympathy of every one that passes 
by. In such frequent cases of moral disease in the body politic, when the just 
retribution shall overtake the workers of evil, pity may perhaps relent and 
hearken to the cry of misery, and regard the sight of wounds worse than those 
of Lazarus, which even a dog would disdain to lick, and give a cent to the 
modern representatives of fallen greatness, as one of old begged, saying, while 
exhibiting his torn purple, " Daobolem, pauperi Belisario." 

These letters could only be useful for such a purpose, or to be published by 
their author as a confession in anticipation of the horrors of a dying hour, or 
the just judgment of God : not without a precedent in the annals of Infidels and 
Christians, of Rousseau and Augustine. But they are sought for no such pur- 
poses, with no such intentions. A generous penitent would rejoice in antici- 
pating his labor, in another's doing for him that which he had been too careless 
in doing for himself; that which his conscience must have urged, though the 
modesty of his nature might have shrunk from the performance. 

Then how vain the pretence of claiming this property for others ! Is there 
any one, the most degraded of the multitude that 'figure in this book, that would 
claim his labors here as literary property, or allow them to be used as such, if 
it could be pirevented ? Not one. What earnest solicitation do we find in cer- 
tain cases that the letters may be burned, and what assurances that the same 
favor has been granted to the productions of him from whom this is asked ! If 
this were literary property it must have changed its nature in a wonderful 
manner, appearing to amazing advantage in the editor's publication contrasted 
with the author's manuscript. What a grace and brilliancy the setting must 
have lent these paste diamonds and glass jewels of literature ! 

Low as others are in the scale of sensibility, besides Hoyt the claimant, it can- 
not be supposed that they are altogether destitute of feeling on this subject. It 
is related by natural historians that a certain animal, a sort of prototype of those 
beings that wallow in the mire of political corruption, has been known to become 
so insensible in its fatness, that the mice have been allowed to burrow and nestle 
in its back. ' But here, though "learning," in the language of Burke, " mav 
have been cast into the street and trodden under the hoofs of a swinish multi- 
tude," in all the ignorance and disregard of the propriety of speech, as well 
as of decency of manners, we must interpret the clamour with which we are 
assailed and deafened, as a claim of literary property urged here, as the grunt- 
ing of the herd, in the feeling and anticipation of their well fi]led trouo-hs 
being emptied, and themselves sent as commoners at large, through the streets, 
instead of preserving their present accommodation, in the well built pens of the 
public's providing. 



It is now well seen that It was the miserable, vacillating policy of that wretched statesman, the weathercock of 
popular opinion, that led to many of the disasters that overwhelmed the good cause in which I was engaired. How 
did he allow countenance to be given it as long as it seemed prosperous, and how did he command the rigours of 
the law to be strained against the unfortunate, when it became adverse ; bold as a lion against the humble lovers of 
liberty, gentle as a dove to the proud supporters of oppression. Contrast his conduct towards Texns and Canada, 
Britain and Jlexico ! With respect to myself, my imprisonment was procured, at what expense of oatiis and jus- 
tice ! as a sacrifice to satisfy the clamours'of * '* ■*■■ * * * » ; then reluctantly mv release was granted lest 
a longer confinement should injure his interests in an indignant community ; but, not without requiring KJO.OOO 
petitioners to ask the favor of relaxing the hold of cruelty, to furnish a jiret'ence for doing what was right, to afford 
an excuse against a party that he feared might reproach him with mercy ! Great politician ! let prosperity award 
thee a niche in the temple of fame by the side of him of whom it is recorded, that " he could not take a pinch of 
snuff without a stratagem V 



18 THE author's motive FOR PUBLISHING. ABRAHAM V. BtREN. 

Amidst all the obstructions that have been put in my way, myself unheard 
in many parts, and nothinjr but calumnies preceding as an advertisement of my 
bonk, I know that I shall yet be regarded ; that in some way I shall gain a 
public audience, and secure the approbation of the people in my honest effort 
"to do the state some service." Not-despairing, but assured of ultimate suc- 
cess to my righteous cause, with the most earnest wishes and most ardent hopes 
for if here, trusting to such a decision as most recommends itself to your own 
consciences in the prospect of death and at the bar of God, that shall be re- 
echoed in the grateful approbation of the people ; in the consciousness of no 
ill desert, and the justice of my cause, notwithstanding a former decision, of the 
character of which, and its author. Vice Chancellor McCoun, the public have 
already formed their opinion ; and shall soon pronounce their sentence ; I ap- 
'peal to you, and to the whole people ; to you as the representatives of their justice 
and equity, like the ancient Roman, who, when he had put down plots and pun- 
ished treason, was refused by a tribune to be allowed to make a recapitulation 
of his services, but in taking his oath of office customary on resignation, swore 
that he had saved the republic, and all the people assented with a shout.* 



CHAPTER IV. 

Van Buren's hirlh, parentage, and family connexmis. His education and early 

pursuits . He studies lav; — opens a law office — inarries. W. P. Van Ness. 

Aaron Burr. Death of Mrs. Van Buren. John, Abraham, Smith T., ani 

Martin Van Buren, Jr. 

Abraham Van Buren was the owner of a small farm in Kinderhook, Columbia 
county, New York ; and kept a tavern, or public house, first, in a little log 



♦Suppose a clerk finds among his employer's papers n well digested plan, by persons high in lii^ master's confi- 
dence, to defraud him — with other plans, showing that he has heen already defrauded by those persons ; and sup- 
pose this Clerk to remain silent, and allow the guilty individuals to go on and do much more mischief, when, bad 
he warned his emjiluver, they would have been checked in tiine — would not his conduct be faithless, and reprehen- 
sible ? Would he not be as bad as the knaves whose viUany he had thus cloaked ! 

Such was my case. I did not seek the ronhdence of Iloyt, Butler, Van Buren, &o. I received none of it. I 
betrayed no secrets, for I was entrusted with none. But while in a public otBce. belonsing to the United States, I 
found the evidence of knavery, duplicity, fraud, and dishonesty, by which my employers had deeply suffered, and 
were likely to sufler much more ; and that fraud and knavery I hastened publicly to expose, and lay before the 
highest authority in the land, as I was in honor bound to do. 1 also laid it before the people in the form of a public 
book, to which I attached my name as the compiler — skulking I'rom no responsibility, hut courting enquiry. I took 
no profit or advantage by the publication, because, though an e.xile lor the love I bear to freedom, and poor, I 
scorned the reward of an informer for hire. 

I borrowed one hundred dollars, after leaving the Custom House, for which I gave my note. This sum enabled 
me to complete the book. Twenty-five dollars paid the whole expenses of my journey to Boston, where I boarded 
at 4 Boudoin street, until Mr. A. 3. Wright, a highly respectable printer there, had set up the manuscript. I think 
1 had two copies of his edition, and have had some 6 or 8 of the other printed here — and this is all the conne.\ion, 
profit, loss, or interference in any way which I had or have with the Lives of Hoyt and Butler, either direct, or in- 
directly. Of the sales, costs, profits or losses, I know no more than the public — and as to the assertion that I had 
the work published with a fictitious publisher's name, it is equally false with other slanders. I was introduced to Mr. 
Cook in Boston by the printer to the city — I saw him at Mr. Wright's before I left — and I borrowed !S7 from him 
to pay my expenses to N. Y. which I repaid here. While in the Custom House, no man was more careful not to 
divulge aught relative to merchants' entries or invoices, or the official papers of the dejiartment. Who can say to 
the contrarv t 

1 found the proofs of Butler & Co.'s knavery in the people's possession — in a public building of theirs, which had 
cost them a million of dollars. Had I concealed these proofs, future misconduct would have been justly laid at my 
door. Uo not those who blame me for publishing the truth in this case, seek to screen public and private knavery 
in all time coming, by threatening faithful servants if they do not save rogues harmless ? 

I had not agreed to be the depository of dishonest secrets, when I accepted u clerkship in a public office. I had 
never stept out of my own department to seek secrets of any kind. To have concealed tha letters would have been 
to agree that the fountain of public justice should remain impure. I had made no such contract. The letters were 
open. They were mi.\e(l up with the public documents— / coitW ?io« help reading them. They had no business 
there, nor had Mr. Butler any business to make the young Patroon tipsy, keep his good money and send him back 
with that which was bad. 

Were the men who exfiosed the traitorous correspondence found in Major .Andre's boots, hiamcable f " It is dread- 
ful to read such withering exposures of political jirofligacy, such shocking exhibitions of venality, chicanery, hy- 
pocrisy and fraud," says the Commercial Advertiser. I had charged Iloyt, Van Buren, Butler, and their allies, 
years before, v,iih very had conduct, through the prtiss. When I find some of the proofs in a public otfice, and 
given in charge of no one, I am blamed for circulating them I "There are those made manifest in these pages, who 
might gladly invoke the mountains to fall on and cover them." bo says the Courier & Enquirer; and if I have 
done wrong in uncloaking the sinners, let it warn others having like villany to conceal not to employ me. Because 
bod men conspire in secret against the Kepublic, am I to be compelled, in violation of wy oath of fidelity, to con- 
ceal their misconduct, or be insulted for giving the country warning ? 



VAN BUREn'S birth AND PARENTAGE. 19 

building where his eldest son, the seventh president of the United States, was 
born, and afterwards in a frame dwelling which he erected on or near the ?pot 
which his shanty had originally occupied in the centre of the town. Mr. Van 
Buren was quiet, peaceful and good natured, but very illiterate — governor 
George Clinton appointed him a captain of militia shortly after the peace of 17h3, 
but he soon resigned his commission, having very little taste for warlike display, 
and no knowledge of military tactics. His politics were of the right sort for 
a tavern-keeper in a neigliborhood inhabited by democrats and federalists — they 
were of tiie neutral sort. He married when rather advanced in years, Mary 
Goes, otherwise Hoes, a widow lady with three children, (whose first husband's 
name was Van Alen,) a polite, \veil-bred, managing woman, very fond of poli- 
tics ; and as active and ambitious as her partner in life's cares was still, con- 
tented, dull and harmless. They were very poor, but Mr. B. F. Butler, whose 
father kept a store and tavern in the same township, mentions that Mrs. Van 
Buren was " distinguished for her amiable disposition, her exemplary piety, and 
more than ordinary sagacity." She lived to see one of her sons a member of 
Congress, and another of them a state senator and attorney general of New 
York. 

Abraham Van Buren, his wife, and her former husband, Mr. Van Alen, were 
all of Dutch descent — Butler says that her maiden name, Goes, " will be recog- 
nized as a name of distinction by those who are familiar with the history of the 
Netherlands," which I am not. 

Martin, the eldest son of Abraham Van Buren and his wife, Mary Goes, or 
Hoes, was born in the village of Kinderhook, on the 5th of December, 1782 — 
his younger brothers are Lawrence, a farmer, also of Kinderhook, and Abra- 
ham now, I believe postmaster there, but formerly a lawyer at Hudson. There 
were also two sisters, one of whom married Mr. Barent Hoes. 

The early life of Martin Van Buren was passed in his father's tavern. He 
received his education at the village school ; and even that was cut short before 
he had completed his fourteenth year. In 1796, he was sent to the office of Mr. 
Francis Sylvester, a lawyer of his native village, to acquire the art or practice 
of an attorney, and as he had not had the advantages of a collegiate education, 
the statute required him to study the technical, diffuse, and tedious forms of 
English legal practice for seven long years, previous to an examination as to his 
qualifications to be admitted to act as an attorney in the law courts, and several 
years more before attaining the rank of a counsellor at law. 

After remaining several years with Sylvester, Van Buren was taken into the 
law office of William P. Van Ness, at New York. Mr. Van Ness was from 
Columbia county, the steady friend and associate of Aaron Burr, and an astute 
caustic, well-informed politician. He wrote a powerful pamphlet ao-ainst De 
Witt Clinton and Ambrose Spencer, under the signature of " Aristides ; " and 
Van Buren has been often accused of betraying to Judge Spencer or Mr. Clinton 
the author's name. This charge is doubtless unjust, though M. M. Noah reiter- 
ated it publicly after the judge had unequivocally pronounced it false. 

Through Mr. Van Ness, and, probably at his father's tavern, when he was 
on visits at General Van Ness's, Van Buren became acquainted with Vice-Presi- 
dent Burrj who (says Holland or rather Butler,) was led •' to treat him with 
marked attention, and to make every reasonable effort to secure his favorable 
regard." In November, 1803, at the age of nearly twenty-one, Van Buren 
was admitted as an attorney of the Supreme Court, New York, and be^mn busi- 
ness at Kinderhook under the firm of Van Buren &; Miller ; his Ia\v partner 
being a son of Stephen Miller, and both of them what was called ' republi- 
cans.' 



20 VAN BUREN's marriage, EDirCATION, AND FAMILY CONNEXIONS. 

Van Buren, soon after this, paid his addresses to Miss Hannah Hoes-Miss 
Hannah's bro her, Barent, was courting one of Van Buren's sisters at the same 
th'e Both marriages took place. Mrs. Van Buren is described as having 
been a kind, amiable, sweet-tempered woman, and the connexion was a happy 
one wh le i lasted. Van Buren proved himself an afTectionate ^^^-^^^^^^^-^l^l 
smn-lv attached to his wife-si nee rely lamented her death, wli.ch took place 
in mi o""nsumption ; and has remained a widower for the last twenty-e.ght 

^'o7"their family of four sons, the most remarkable is John Van Buren now 
Attorney General of N. Y. State, who manned a daughter of Judge Janes 
Vanderpoelof Kinderhook, and is now a widower. ^^T ^ ^' J?; '^.n Plert 
Albany Atlas, married her sister. Wright and Van Buren's ^^]^''^]' f,^^^^^^^^ 
his partner, Cassidv, State Printer, and thus keep that lucrative banch of the 
revenue in the family or among its dependants The eldest son Abraham Van 
Buren married a daughter of Colonel Singleton, a wealthy planter of South 
Ca ol 'na a. d is a brother-in-law of Senator McDuffie. Andrew Stevenson 
of ValTs'the lady's uncle. The third son. Smith Thompson Van Buren, mar- 
ried a daughter of the late William James, a nch citizen ot Albany, Her 
sister is the%vife of Robert E. Temple, a son of J^^ge Temple otVeimont 
whom Gov'r. Wright has appointed to the office of Adjutant Gene al of the 
Militia. The fourth son is Martin Van Buren, so named after his tathei. 

CHAPTER V. 

Van Bureiis early haUls. The importance to Society of a judicious Educatim. 
James 1. Van Alen. State of Parties in N. Y. Clinton and Spencer The 
Embargo of 1807-8. The Surrogates of Cohmhia county. Van Buren s course 
as a partisan. Aristides. 

Martin Van Buren the elder, was a slirewd, cunning, clever boy--very 
fond of betting, gambling and card playing-a first rate pleader for a 
small fee in cJses tried before a justice of the peace-very persevering in 
sud. branches of study as he found to be particularly useful-good at trading 
horses and making bargains-and endeavored to give some consideration to 
tha branch of the^science of morals called politics at a very early age a the 
tavern Dr. Holland mentions, that during Van Buren's boyhood, Kinderhook 
was a "litigious, quarrelsome place, where -party politics raged violently, and 
ft-equently disturbed the peaceful relations of neighbors whose real mterests 
werenotL conflict with each other," and 'Uhe theatre of incessant litigation 
Tnd judicial combat, especially in the local courts." A gentleman who remem- 
bers him from his infancy, tells me that his common conversation J" f '"ly J^^ 
faTmor^ resembled the sfvle of his .son John's epistles to Jesse Hoyt, than those 
ofhis student Benjamin Butler, dated from Sandy Hill. , ,, „ 

How important "is useful knowledge, not only to the perst^n taught, bu to the 

community, to his country, and the world ! Witli young Van Buren's talents, 

enercXl'haracter, and ambition to raise himself to riches and distinc ion 

what°advanta.^es might not his country have derived Irom his exertions, had h.s 

education been judicious and liberal-had he recevied that instruction which 

?ormX mind, elevates the soul, directs the judgment, gives a zest to the hnest 

feel n. of humanity, enables native talent and genius to enlist under the ban- 

nerol- virtue, and s^nds forth into society men of patriotism and love of truth 

whose souls ^re filled with generous anticipations ot '-P^-j-Sj^e condiUon 

and increasing the social comforts of mankind ! Jefferson, Clinton and La ay- 

et"e,tho' reared in affluence, struggled through life to increase the public stock 



VAN BUREN PLEADS LAW AND BECOMES A POLITICIAN. 21 

of useful knowledge, and knock off the fetters which bind the millions ; and 
they died poor — wealth and high station have been Mr. Van Buren's great aim 
— he has been President of the Republic, his children are married into rich 
families, and, he himself is the owner of large possessions, and covered with 
honors and distinction. He enjoys the comfort of a temporary retirement from 
public life in one of his country seats, once the family mansion of General Van 
Ness, a lovely spot within view of his birth place, and near to the banks of the 
Hudson and the base of the lofty Catskill. Education, such as he received at 
the village school, in the tavern of his father, among the petty quarrels and 
cases of crime tried before the country squires, among noisy and brawling poli- 
ticians, gamblers, and horse jockies of Kinderhook and its environs, and in the 
office of a well meaning country attorney, tied down to the apocryphal practice 
of English law, laid the foundation of his fortunes ; and we shall enquire, in 
succeding chapters how far his elevation to power has been a benefit or an in- 
jury to his country. 

Van Buren had been licensed to practise as an attorney in the state courts in 
Nov. 1803 — next year he was admitted to practise as attorney and counsellor 
in the supreme court. Sometime in 180.5 or 1806 he entered into a law part- 
nership with his half-brother James I. Van Alen, who was much older than him- 
self, had been educated for the law, was in good practice, and in May 1806, 
elected a member of the tenth congress, which met in December, 1807. Mr. 
Butler, and Dr. Holland describe Van Alen as a high toned federalist ! while 
the Hudson Bee, and the R'epublican Watch Tower (May 9, 1806) name him 
as a republican, opposing the ex-chancellor, R. R. Livingston, and what they 
call the federal influence. " In spite of the almost all-pervading and all-potent 
influence of the Merchants' Bank and the intrigues of Governor Lewis's party 
(says the Bee,) the repuhlirans of this county have presented a sound and un- 
varying body." Who could understand from this that Van Alen had been the 
federal candidate ? 

In 1800, the great federal part}^ in the state of N. Y. Avere overthrown by 
the united efforts of the Clintons, Livingstons and Aaron Burr; Burr was after- 
wards temporarily prostrated by the Clintons and Livingstons, and more effectu- 
ally by his duel with Colonel Hamilton — shortly after this the Clintons quarreled 
with the Livingstons and overcame them. Van Buren took sides with the Clintons 
and W. H. Crawford of Georgia, against Jefferson's embargo act. Soon after 
its passage by congress, De Witt Clinton presided at a public meeting in the 
City of New York, by which it was condemned ; and Chectham, in The A}ne- 
rican Citizen, the Clintonian paper, steadily denounced it. The Clinton and 
Spencer party influence made Daniel D. Tompkins, who was a member of 
congress for that city, Governor of the state ; and having a majority in the 
Assembly of the state, elected in Feb. 1808, Benjamin Coe, P. C. Adams, John 
Veeder, and Nathan Smith, as a council of appointment, to remove political 
opponents from office and choose friends to fill vacancies. This council forth- 
with appointed De Witt Clinton to the mayoralty of New York, Sylvanus 
Miller to be surrogate there, and Joseph C. Yates a judge of the Supreme 
Court. Van Buren's reward was the office of surrogate of Columbia Countv. 

In the course of the year, (1808,) Clinton and Crawford, changed their minds 
in favor of the embargo, having given the question a more careful consideration. 

In 1810, a federal council came into power at Albany, but, tho' (as Ham- 
mond tells us) sheriffs and surrogates " were generally made to feel its power," 
Van Buren held on quietly. James I. Van Alen, his half-brother, was the sur- 
rogate before him — making laws at Washington, and performing judicial" 
duties, the' the deputy of a deputy, on the banks of the Hudson — Van Buren got ' 






22 VAN ALEN, ARISTIDES, SOUTHWICK fc VAN BUREX. BAKKHxu. 

his place, ]\lareh 20, 1808— and in 1818, when he was safely seated in ths 
Senate, the federalists restored the surrogate's office to Vp.tj Alen. In the 
•struggles of faction, brothers of the same family, and law-partners of the same 
tirm?°often took opposite sides, and, like V. 13. and V. A. played into^ each 
otlier's hands. It was said not long since of the brothers Wetmore of New 
York, that, like two buckets in a well, when one was down the other was up ; 
one of them at least was sure to be in the majority of the hour^ and in office. 
There are many such cases. By reference to page I'JO, note tirst, it will be 
seen that, tho' Van Alen, the federalist, did not hold on continually, his brother, 
Martin, the democrat, hastened to put him back into the surrogate's iu 1821, 
throwing in the office of assistant county judge, with its emoluments, for his 
further accommodation ; both of which places, I believe, he held on to, besides 
his legal practice, till the day of his death. 

M. M. Noali and others haVe insinuated that Van Buren went over to gover- 
nor Lewis and the Livingstons in 1804, when twenty-one years old, in conse- 
quence of a quarrel with W. P. Van Ness, arising out of the secret disclosure 
of that gentleiuau's autliorship of 'Aristides' — but as Judge Spencer has stated 
that this cliarge of a betrayal of couiidence has no foundation, we are bound 
wholly to discredit it. Iu 1807, as Butler and Holland inform us. Van Bureu 
was no longer found under the Livingston standard — he supported Daniel D. 
Tompkins, who was Governor Lewis's opponent — and again in 1810. From 
1803 to 1812 lie was a thorough-going Clintonian, and- delivered a strong and 
energetic address in favor of Clinton as President, in opposition to Madison, in 
November, 1«12, in the legislative caucus at Albany. Solomon Southwick 
and Martin Van Buren were sworn friends in politics from 1804 to 1813. They 
went for Lewis in 1804 — for Tompkins, against Lewis in 1807 — for Tompkins 
in 1810 — and lor entangling DeWitt Clinton in their toils — to put down Madison 
in 1812. In Southwick's remarkable letter to me [page 2H3,] on Van Buren, 
he gives a death bed version as it were of Van Buren's true character, as he 
liad ascertained it from a personal intimacy of many years. The reader may 
judge from the facts given in this volume whether his strictures are warranted. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Van Buren's experience on iV. Y. hanking. He lobbies for a charter to the Bank 
of Hudson. Van Buren, kis brother-in-law, Canline, and W. P. Van Ness 
become directors of that bank. It explodes — a total loreck. Van Ness upon 
Society. Madison gioes him a U. S. judgeship. His manner of guarding the 
court monies. Theron Kiidd. Van Buren's unconquerable dislike to bank 
shares. 

Van Bcren is, and always has been, a studious, enquiring, observing man. 
In his early days the principles of banking and paper currency were discussed in 
Congress, in the State Legislatures, by the press, and in private circles, with 
the utmost earnestness ; and that class of instructive facts which were exhibited 
in the state banks' suspension of 1837, were in active operation before his eyes, 
during the stoppage of cash payments in 1814 and 1815 : he was as well 
aware, in 1829, when he recommended a chain of safety (! ! !) fund banks, 
and in 1834, when he placed tiiem in a state of dependance on the federal ex- 
ecutive, that the result would be a general bankruptcy, as, when, in 1839, he 
echoed the impotent threats of the ^Hermitage against the deceptions of tiieir 
presidents, directors and officers. With Van Buren there had been no du})licity ; 
he understood and anticipated every move they made. This fact will become 
apparent to the impartial and attentive reader. 



THE HUDSON BANK. VAN NESS ON SOCIETY. THERON RUDD. 23 

In 1808, Van Buren went to Albany to use his influence with the lobby for 
the chartering of the Bank of Hudson; the application was successful, and in 
due time he became a director and prosecuting attorney for the institution. 
Moses I. Cantine, his brother-in-law, a state senator of his politics, and after- 
wards state printer, was one of the directors on the part of the people of N. Y., 
who had a share of the management, held stock, deposited part of the public 
monies, in this bank, and elected two directors, through the State Legislature. 
William P. Van Ness, the friend of Burr, the brother of Cornelius P. Van Ness, 
late collector of customs. New York, and of General John P. Van Ness, Presi- 
dent of the Bank of the Metropolis, Washington, and who had been a legal in- 
structor of Van Buren, was one of his associates at the board of direction. 
When Van Buren left Hudson for Albany he gave up his seat at the discount 
board ; but as Attorney General it remained under his supervision, through its 
charter, and as being a state institution, and for years paying no specie. In 
1823, it exploded, but Van Buren had sold out his stock j having been behind 
the screen, he was well aware how matters were going. The House of As- 
sembly appointed a committee to enquire into the aftairs of the Hudson Bank, 
which reported on the third of February, that year, [see Assembly's Journal,] 
that on looking into its management, going back " many years," the facts which 
had come under their observation "disclose a scene of wild speculation, ruin- 
ous and improvident management on the part of many of its officers," by 
which the stock-holders lost their stock, the bill-holders their bills, which went 
down from being worth five to six cents per dollar, to nothing ; and Van Buren 
and the public gained some experience — he in safety-fund banking, and his 
constituents in its results. 

A few months after Van Buren removed to Hudson, his friend. Judge (W. P.) 
Van Ness, then of Columbia county, delivered an able charge to the grand-in- 
quest of that county, there, wherein he took occasion to describe the condition 
of society as follows : 

" Although we have not quite attained the skill and hardihood in the perpetration of crimes 
which distinguishes the nations of the old world, we may claim all the merit of most hopeful 
pupils, and successful imitators. All the evil propensities of foreign growth have here found a 
most congenial soil.' That species of profligacy, which has hitherto been believed to bo the off- 
spring of deep national, and individual degeneracy, seems to flourish here, with a poisonous 
luxuriance that overshadows and blasts every virtuous principle. A little attention to this sub- 
ject, will evince to you that in these days of speculation and refinement, mankind is improving 
in every thing but virtue. That his ingenuity is e.xerted with great success, in the skilful com- 
mission of crimes, and in the practice of devices infinitely various, for the purpose of eluding 
detection, and escajjing the penalties of the law. In a simple state of manners, the artifices of 
designing men, were less complex. Vice marched directly to its object. The conception and 
consummation of a crime rapidly succeeded each other. But now the multiphed acts of men often 
exhibit specimens of the most skilful and accomplished villainy, which, by evasive dexterity, 
almost baffles the usual methods of scrutiny and detection. The wealth that has poured in upon 
us, since our national birth, and the reputation we have established, has exalted our pride, and 
intoxicated our vanity, with the hopes of uninterrupted prosperity. But it should be remembered, 
that these advantages in a national as well as private view, are frail and evanescent, aud that the 
most prosperous periods are not unfVequently selected by the wisdom of God to chastise the as- 
piring spirit of a people." 

Win. P. Van Ness was soon after appointed by Mr. Madi.son, to the office of 
District Judge at New York ; and in 1812, he removed Charles Clinton the 
clerk, and appointed Theron Rudd in his stead. Mr. Talmadge, the circuit 
judge, turned off Rudd and appointed John C. Spencer's uncle, Philip, Clinton 
not desiring a reappointment. In August,18I3, Mr. Van Ness put out Spencer 
and gave Rudd the clerk's place again. It wasRudd's duty to keep the money 
in charge of the court, in a bank designated to him, and a rule of court forbade 
hiiTi to pay out or remove any of it v/ithout the judge's order, stating to whom 
the cash was to be paid, and why. Judge Van Ness repealed the rule. Ano- 



24 A DEFALCATION. VAN BUREN AND THE FINANCIERS OF 1808. 

thr-r rule of court which subjected Rudd's account of cash on hand, to two half 
Yearly inspections by the "judge and district attorney, the judge amended 
bv leavin<T out the district attorney's name, but never after enquired into Rudd s 
financial operations. The law required Van Ness to take bonds and security 
for the faithful performance of his duties, but he omitted it when he reappointed 
him In Feb. 1817, Rudd had about $150,000 in his hands belonging to sui- 
tors in Van Ness's court, and suspicion having arisen a committee of congress 
examined the judge, who went to Washington and told a committee of the ben^ 
ate that the cash in charge of his court was perfectly safe in "the Middle Dis- 
trict Bank " north of the^hichlands, and that his clerk, Rudd, was " every way 
responsible undrr his bond." The clerk had given no bond—the judge had 
made no enquiry about the money for several years. Judge Van Ness tried 
in vain to prevent congress from passing a law requiring ' court monies to be 
paid into bank, and all payments by them to be by the judge s order. In_ June, 
1817 an order for the attachment of Rudd was issued— he was put in prison— 
kt out a-ain-and finally a committee of congress, April 10, 1818, announced 
that $117,397 of the public money "were unaccounted for by 1 hero^i Rudd. 
and that thev have been most grossly and nefariously purloined ^o law 
was then parsed to punish further peculation; and when in July, 1840, a 
penal enactment found its way into the sub-treasury bill, Jud-e Betts, the sue 
cessor of Van Ness, discovered that it would not apply to Jesse Hoyt s case. 
Rudd was a great admirer of Van Buren-upheld his administration powerful- 
ly, as editor of the New Era— went for the sub.treasury--and, like Price, 
Swartwout, Gouverneur and Hoyt, probably:expended a fair share of the ' court 
monies' in manufacturing public opinion, to serve party leaders, at lammany 
Hall, Texas, or elsewhere. „ , , -n . .• 

Judo-e Van Ness's practice, thro' his clerk, Rudd, afforded an apt illustration 
of his Theory of society, above quoted. Altho' the committee of congress blamed 
his remissness, they had no reason to believe that he received a dollar of the 
missino- treasure. "He died in 1324, anything but wealthy— and the beautiful 
lands Ind mansion of his family were purchased, and are now occupied by his 
ancient pupil, Van Buren. 

Van Buren's official biographer, Holland, tells us, page 303,"that_he has 
wholly abstained from becoming the owner of any bank stock or takmg any 
interest in any company incorporated by the legislature of New York since the 
period of his entrance into the Senate of that state in 181;2 ; all which is as 
tvno,hd not more so, than O'Sullivan's assertion m his life of B. F. Butler, 
Van Buren's law-partner, that he left the Washington and Warren Bank, in 
good condition, paying every body specie. Van Buren was not only interested 
in banks, but was one of the most active managers of the very worst of them, 
in IH 14, that at Hudson.* 

,. ,o|,. ,,,„ le^isliUure v{ New York iv.'-^i an act to lend cenain classes of the citizens a sum of money for their 
relief Mr.' Van Rl^ren's fnonri.gent, n,>,l admirer, Mordecai M. Noah, gives the following br.ef h.story of .t .„ 
ih.pJ\r Y Ktt/«'n" W'lr of Au^'iial J, 1834 : 

. Th. ..iv.ri^rs of the Kank of New York, the Hank of Albany, the Far.ners' Bank of Troy and the Bank of tol- 

,r ,1,, ex ,ir n- ind O.ev hmi a 1 applied for the extension of their charters. The co.n.nercm cond.tion 

ijiiihia, were ahoot e.xpinn-, .inu ''"'-■'^ "'"''. > , „.eat embarrassment, resulting from the then emhar^'o. and 

grants were part.a J" ' '"'I.^lHoV r" ie^d I ^t e^^^^^^^^^ charters. To obviate this alleged partiality 

c.,uld not, and would not be 'f"^"*'!" ,;,"' ^^'^V ' ,>^J 'f,^7,„,,n „us drawn by the tkcn Attorney General, .1 1 mem 

Ihc loan ot 1808 was adopted ^''^ J'' '/^f/X '''tUc wh "h o^^^^^^^ at that time, the incorporation of the Bank 
,,er of Assenib y frorn th,, cuy^ Jhe -;;-;'7, ,^ ^^Xe sessmn of 1808, a lobby racier for the chartermg of r/<«t 

:!n;;::orJl^X'(r«.:w^^^n;^:i^^rn;;l^^^^ of thatinstitut.„ IW a numbers 

years." 



VAN BUREN WEARING HIS HARD MONEY FACE, THE BANE OF AMERICA. 26 

CHAPTER VII. 

Van Bur en sets up as mi enemy to Chartered Banks! The Bank of America^ 
or Six Mill/on Bank. Tompkins opposes it, and describes the dangers of tJie 
N. Y. banking system. Southioick and the friends of the hank support Van 
Buren in 1812 for the Senate. General Root, James W. Wilkin, Ambrose 
and J. C. Spencer, and Samuel Campbell sustain Tompkins. The Common. 
Schools cheated out of the Bank Bonus. Judge W. W. Van Ness's bribe. The 
Merchants^ Bank Charter, 1805. 

When Van Buren was a candidate for the Vice Presidency, a sketch of his 
life appeared in the Albany Argus, and afterwards in pamphlet form, by B. 
F. Butler. When in 1835, he was put forward for the office of President, But- 
ler's pamphlet was enlarged into a duodecimo; Dr. Holland was the repu- 
ted author, but Butler compiled the more important parts. Blair's Globe, the 
Argus, and other prints under Van Buren's control, warranted the narrative to 
be authentic, and I therefore quote it as Van Buren's own version of his history 
and principles. In page 301, it tells us, that " Of all inventions which have 
been put in operation, in this country, to promote the inordinate accumulation 
of wealtli, the most exceptionable are incorporated companies ; and the worst 
of all incorporated companies are banks." In page 40, it assures us, that, in 
the days of Washington, " the leading doctrines of the democratic party were 

* * * * no privileges to particular sections of the country or to parti- 
cular classes of the community — no monopolies, trading companies, or gover- 
mental banks" — while "the doctrines of the anti-republican party were similar 
to those of the present day. They were for a splendid, consolidated govern- 
ment, SUPPORTED BY A NATIONAL BaNK, AND REVOLVING ABOUT AN INTRIGUING 

AND CORRUPTING TREASURY." In page 303, it denounces " incorporated banks," 
and a paper currency ; remarking, that " it may be reasonably doubted whether 
the whole [banking] system, from beginning to end, is not an infraction of the 
constitution. It is, at least, an evasion of its plain provisions, pernicious in its 
influence upon industry and morals, and meriting the firm resistance of all true 
lovers of equal rights." 

When, in 1811, George Clinton's casting vote in the United States Senate, 
closed the career of the first national bank, its friends pursued very nearly the 
same course which the directors of the second national bank followed, when 
Jackson's veto prevented a renewal of its charter. They endeavored to incor- 
porate it as a state institution; and as Pennsylvania was opposed to them, and 
her legislature refused them a state charter, by a vote of 69 to 22, they came 
to Albany, and thro' persuasion, influence, interest, and I regret to add, bribery, 
obtained majorities in both branches of the legislature, for chartering '■■ the 
Bank of America," with a capital of six millions of dollars. Holland, page 
304, tells us that "In the spring of 1812, Governor Tompkins prorogued the 
legislature, to prevent the passage of the charter for the bank ; and Mr. Van 
Buren yielded this energetic, but necessary, exercise of power, his firmest sup- 
port." This may be true, for Van Buren's opponent, E. P. Livingston, was a 
thorough Bank man — yet I perceive that Solomon Southwick, State Printer, 
President of the Farmers and Mechanics' Bank, Albany, who was the most ultra 
advocate of " the Bank of America" in the Union, and employed by its projectors 
to travel over the state in 1811, and enlist recruits and manufacture public opin- 
ion for its use, and who had become deadly hostile to Tompkins, earnestly urg- 
ed the people to choose Van Buren as a Senator ; this he did in April, 1812, 
only a month before the bank bill passed into a law in spite of Tompkins and 
the war party. These were his words: 



26 southwick's two characters of van btjeen. 

" Albany Register, April, 1812. — Middle District — for Senator, MAR,TIN 
VAN BUREN. In the Middle District, WE REJOICE in the nomination 
of MR. VAN BUREN— WE HAVE LONG KNOWN AND ESTEEMED 
HfM. He possesses genius, intelligence, and eloquence — has long been one 
of the firmest props of the Republican interest ; and with a spirit v/hich will 
not bend to servility or sycophancy, cannot fail to become a distinguished and 
useful member of the Senate. Attempts are now making to divide the party 
on a question which has no connexion with it. We allude to the bank question. 
Attempts are said to have been made to corrupt certain members, but without 
success ; and surely an unsuccessful attempt to corrupt ONE member who 
voted against the bill, is not to be admitted as proof, nor ought it to give birth 
even to a suspicion, that another who voted for it had been corrupted." 

Van Buren, was elected — the six million bank bill became a law — and on 
the eighth of December, 1838, Mr. Southwick wrote me as follows: 

" I hope, my dear sir, that you are now convinced of what I told you in 
August last, that Van Buren was heartless, hypocritical, selfish and unprincipled. 
He is the tool or slave of a foul heart and a false ambition, and never possessed 
a particle of true greatness. I speak not from prejudice — I knew him inti- 
mately— VERY INTIMATELY FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS, and never 
knew him to act from a noble and disinterested motive; always full of low 
cunning, dark intrigue, and base selfishness." 

He died soon after, and the Albany Argus, and Evening .Tournal, thus de- 
scribed him : " He was among the most ardent, generous, warm-hearted men 
that ever lived. He was in his manners, feelings and sentiments, a republican. 
Oppression and tyranny found in him an enthusiastic and fearless opponent."' 
Hammond speaks of him in the same strain. 

In less than three months from the time when Southwick took the field for 
Van Buren, as above, namely in July, 1812, John C. Spencer, in the Ontario 
Messenger, remarked, that, " next to the tories, we think apostate republican 
editors deserve to be marked and known. The first whose name is entitled to 
be enrolled on this list is Solomon Southwick." 

The memorial of Cornelius Ray and others, read in Senate, February 15, 
1812, set forth, that the trustees of the late Bank of the United States had 
accumulated a large sum in specie in their vaults, which they were desirous 
to employ in the business of banking ; that of this money a considerable sum 
was owned by foreigners, who could neither vote on their shares nor be direc- 
tors ; that a partial revival of the late national bank was desired by its trustees ; 
who wished the stock-holders of the late United States Bank incorporated as 
the Phoenix Bank, for tAventy years, with $5,000,000 of capital, which privilege 
of incorporation they were ready to purchase at the expense of $500,000 in 
cash, to be paid to the state, and other $500,000 they would lend to the state at 
five per cent. An additional million of stock was afterwards added by the 
legislature, which refused to allow New York state to hold the $60,000 she had 
held ill the old U. S. Bank, and refused to give U. S. Bank .stockholders, if 
natives, a preference to ditto, if foreigners. The bonus or price of the charter 
was raised to $600,000, and a loan to the state of $2,000,000. Of its capital, 
{$5,000,000 were to be paid in specie at once, and it was to be restricted to a 
bank note circulation equal to its capital. No other bank opposed its charter. 

On the twenty-eighth of March, Governor Tompkins prorogued the legisla- 
ture to the twenty-first of May. He had no veto power. In his speech at the 
prorogation, he mentioned tliat, at the previous session, members had been tam- 
pered with to induce the passage of the late Jersey Bank charter — and " that 
some y&ars since, it was ascertained beyond any reasonable doubt, that corrupt 
jp.ducements were held out to members of the Legislature in order to obtain 



GOVERNOR TOMPKINS ON N. Y. BANKING* BRIBERY TRIALS. S"/ 

their votes in favor of an incorporation of a banking institution [the Merchants' 
Bank] in the city of New York ; and the very stronsj and general suspicion, 
that the emoluments tendered were, in certain instances, accepted, inflicted a 
deep wound upon the purity and independence of legislation. That it appeared 
by the journals of the Assembly, that attempts have been made to corrupt, by 
bribes, four members of that body, to vote for the passage of the bill to incor- 
porate the Bank of America ; and it also appeared by the journals of the Sen- 
ate, that an improper attempt had been made to influence one of the Senators 
to vote for the bill." 

Governor Tompkins, when he opened the session, on the twenty-eighth of 
January, said, that, " not un frequently, the prominent men who seek the incor- 
poration of new banks, are the very same who have deeply participated in the 
original stock of most of the previously established banks. Having disposed 
of that stock at a lucrative advance, and their avidity being sharpened by re. 
peated gratification, they become more importunate and vehement in every freoh 
attempt to obtain an opportunity of renewing their speculations. If (said he) 
we still persevere in multiplying banks, will there not be danger of infusing into 
the public mind a suspicion, either that we yield too plainly to the management 
and pressure of external combinations, or that the unhallowed shrine of cupidity 
has its adorers within the very sanctuary of legislation — such a suspicion will 
be the prelude to the downfall of republican government, for it is erected and 
supported upon the afllictions of the people at large, and upon their faith in the 
inviolable firmness and probity of their public agents, and when once the found- 
ation is removed the superstructure must fall, of course." 

Among those who were opposed to this bank and approvers of the governor's 
course, I find the names of Archibald Mclntyre, James W. Wilkin, Erastus 
Root, John Tayler, John W. Taylor, F. A. Bloodgood, Ambrose Spencer, John 
C. Spencer, Samuel Campbell, B. Coe, Nathan San ford, Henry Yates, Alex- 
ander Sheldon, and Isaac Ogden. Among the friends of the bank, were Sam- 
uel Jones, Jr., Halsey Rogers, E. P. Livingston, Morgan Lewis, Jonas Piatt, 
and Ab'm Van Vechten. Van Buren's biographer, Holland, states, pages 86 
and 87, that he supported Tompkins Avith his " utmost influence and best talents," 
and that the bill " did not become a law ; but owed its defeat to the firmness of 
the governor." This is not true — the bill becatne a law in June, 1812 — Oliver 
Wolcoti was the first president — and Preserved Fish and Theodorus Bailey, ultra 
democrats, were named in the act, with others, as directors for two years. 

Next year (1813) in March, the opponents of Madison came into power in 
the Assembly, but the senate remained democratic, so called. Of the bonus 
agreed to be paid towards common schools for their charter, the Bank of Amer- 
ica asked to have 6300,000 returned to them — and it was done, by 16 to 9 in 
the senate, Root and Van Buren, Bloodgood and Wilkin, being among the nays, 
to their credit be it recorded. It does seem to me, that, as neither party wanted 
to be rid of banks — and, that, as there was as much rottenness about ' the Man- 
hattan' of the Democrats as 'the Merchants' of the Federalists — the offer of 
the trustees of the U. S. Bank, was, in its way, very liberal, had it been unac- 
companied with bribery — but the corrupting of the next year's legislature to 
induce them to give back to the bank $300,000 of the purchase money of the 
monopoly, out of the common school fund, after the bank was afloat, through 
wholesale corruption, was a refinement in knavery evincing talents suitable for 
Botany Bay or Van Dieman's Land. Southwick, Thomas, and others, were 
tried for bribery, and acquitted. Judge W. W. Van Ness, of Columbia county, 
presided at Soutlnvick's trial, and took a bribe of $5,000 out of the funds of 
the bank, for his services in voting for the bill as a member of the council of 
revision (!!!) Charles King, J. A. Hamilton, and J. Verplanck, manfully stated 



28 A JtJDGE TRIED FOU BRIBERY. THEODOEUS BAILEV. VAN BtJREN. 

the facts in the American — General Root, in 18'20, brought the judge before the 
legislature, where, instead of telling a plain story like a man, he appeared en- 
trenched behind the legal quibbles of four hired lawyers, six of the committee 
being also men of law. John Duer and Rudolph Bunner swore positively that 
Van Ness had told them that he was entitled to the third of $20,000, secretly 
appropriated by the bank for a gratuity to him, and the services of Grosvenor 
and VVilliams, and that he feared he would only get $5,000. The receipt and 
books of the bank were not forthcoming — the judge had the cash — but the shock 
he got through the enquiry affected his health — he died in 1824. Butler alludes 
to him in letter thirty-eight of Correspondence. 

I am particular in noticing the system of New York bank chartering, to show 
how well aware Messrs. Van Buren, Cambrelenor, Wright, Flaafsr, Dix, Younar, 
Kendall, Butler, Beardsley, Marcy, Benton, Dickenson, Lawrence, Hoyt, Allen, 
Fish, &c., were, of what would be the results of their tampering with the cur- 
rency from 18-^8 to 1840. 

Theodorus Bailey, who was one of the most active and urgent of the lobby 
waiters for the Bank of America, in 1812, presided at a meeting of the demo- 
crats of New York, on the twenty-third of April, 1805, at which an address 
was got up, signed by him, and sent through the state, denouncing the infamous 
proceedings connected with the Merchants' Bank charter. Here are extracts : 

" Alas I the influence of gold has triumphed over the honor and interests of oiir country. — It 
is undeniable that a member of the senate endeavoured to bribe one of his colleagues, and that 
he is still permitted to degrade that honorable body by his presence. Can future confidence be 
reposed in him? Can our lives, our liberties and fortunes, be safely entrusted in such hands? 
If he was guilty, why was he not expelled ? If he was innocent, why was he censured by a vote 
of the senate? When the charge of corruption was openly announced in the Assembly, a com- 
mittee of investigation w-as appointed by the Speaker, by the command and with the sanction of 
that house. The chairman of the committee presented a report, and a majority refused to receive 
it? Can we believe that men, conscious of integrity, and jealous of their characters, would have 
shrunk from evidence calculated to vindicate the innocent, and detect the guilty? Would they 
luive added to such committee individuah subject to the general crimination, knowing as they 
must have knoicn, that their conduct could be attributed to no other cause than a determination 
to suppress the truth V 

" Corruption [says Col. Duane] was first employed in the senate house, it produced the desired 
effect — the press proclaimed the fact ; the senate, in consequence, instituted an enquiry, passed a 
vote of censure upon the corrupted member, and yet, strange to relate, this very senate ordered 
the printer who proclaimed the turpitude to be prosecuted, denying bun the privilege of giving the 
truth in evidence." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Yan Buren removes his law office to Hudson. Is appointed Attorney General. 
Receives the support of the Anti-Renters for the State Senate. Changes his 
residence to Albany. Is removed, from, the Attorney Generalship, and elected 
to the United Stales Senate. Fifty-one high-minded Federalists join the Buck, 
tails to put down Clinton. Clinton exposes " the organized corps.'' Van 
Buren' s early effort to convert the post office into a machine of party hy pun- 
ishing post -masters for opinion's sake. 

I.v the latter part of 1808, or beginning of 1809, Van Buren removed his law 
office to Hudson, and continued to practice in the state and county courts till 
February, 1815, when he succeeded Abraham Van Vechten as Attorney Gen- 
eral of N. Y. The Council of Appointment chosen by the Assembly voted, two 
for Van Buren, (Jonathan Dayton and Lucas Elmendorff,) and two (Ruggles 
Hubbard and Farrand Stranahan) for John Woodworth, whom B. F. Butler 
appears to have so much disliked. Governor Tompkins gave the casting vote, in 
favor of Van Buren. In May, 1S12, Van Buren was elected Senator for the 
Middle District — the anti-renters of Columbia county, whom he frequently 



V. BURSN IN THE SENATE. HE UNITRS WITH THE FEDS TO OUST CLINTON- 2^ 

haransueJ, and the friends of De Witt Clinton in Rockland county, having 
turned the scale in his favor. He received 5,033, votes and his opponent, Ed- 
ward P. Livingston, whom he afterwards stronfrly recommended and supported 
for the office of lieutenant governor, got but 5,81)0. Holland says there were 
over 20,000 votes polled, which I believe, was not the ca<e. 

At the time of Van Buren's election to the senate, Columbia county was 
greatly agitated with the anti-rent question. His conduct and proceedings with 
reference to that agitation are noticed in a subsequent part of this work. 

Van Buren took his seat in the senate of New York, in November, 1812, 
and voted for De Witt Clinton for President, in opposition to James Madison 
and the old Jeffersonian party, having been supported for the senate by Solomon 
Southwick and other editors in the interest of Clinton. In March, 1813, he be- 
came a member of the court for the revision of errors; and in 18 6, removed 
from Hudson to Albany, where he resided till 1829, when he exchanged the 
office of Governor of N. Y. for that of Secretary of State, at Washington, 
in conformity with a secret understanding with General Jackson, previous to 
his election, as may be seen by referring to his letter to J. Hoyt, No. 165 page 
207 of Correspondence, where he expresses the belief that his designs would 
have been frustrated had the honest and conscientious Pitcher been nominated 
us lieutenant governor, at Herkimer, instead of that pliant, corrupt, and there- 
fore convenient party tool, Enos T. Throop. 

In July, 1819, Van Buren, who had long been the most active and untiring 
of Governor Clinton's opponents, was removed from the influential office of At- 
torney General, now held b}^ his son, John, and Thomas J. Oakley appointed in 
his place. In the session of 1821, Van Buren was sent to Washington as U. 
S. Senator, in the stead of Nathan Sanford, whose term had expired. In a 
legislative caucus he got .58 votes — Sanford got 24. In the legislature he had 
86 votes — Sanford, 60. It is a curious fact that but for the operation of the 
party caucus pledge, Van Buren would have failed, a decided majority of the 
members of the two houses being against him. By securing a majority in a 
private party meeting, however, the minority of the party had to go with its 
majority, contrar}^ to their judgment, to nullify the plainest provisions of law 
and the wishes of the whole legislative body. 

In 1819, a party among the federalists, of whom Charles King and William 
A. Duer, (late president of Columbia college, N. Y., and whom Jesse Hoyt, in 
his letters, notices in rather an unfriendly manner,) seemed to have formed a 
design to put down Clinton. Fifty-one of them, including James A. Hamilton, 
Josiah Ogden Hoffinan, John A. King, James Lynch, Johnson Vcrplanck, John C. 
Hamilton and John Duer, issued an address, on the fourteenth of February, 
1820, declaring that the federal party was at an end — that they approve of 
Monroe's administration — that they will support Tompkins and oppose Clinton 
for governor, though they neither object to the measures, morals, nor abilities of 
the latter. The Albany regency, with Van Buren as their leader, united with 
these fifty-one " high-minded " federalists, says Hammond, "to oppose the election 
of a governor, neither of which charged upon him a want of capacity, or inteo-- 
rity, or uttered a solitary syllable against his measures." He was sustained by 
the people by a majority of 1457 votes, but his no- principled opponents (for such 
they seem to have been,) carried the legislature. 

Governor Clinton's speech to the legislature gave great offence to B. F. Butler, 
Van Buren, Hoyt, Marcy, &:c. ; and his message in January, 1821, where he 
shows that the officials in the pay of the federal government were interfering 
with the state elections, is described by the financial admirer of " stated preach- 
ing" as "very abusive." [See No. 47, page 167.] In his letter No. 31, page 
161, he says " Clinton is raving mad, beside being a fool" — in 1819 (see No. 2) 



''<t 



30 THE CONVENTION OF 1821. VAN BUREN AND THE POST OFFICE. 

he thought Clinton's situation was "daily becoming more desperate" — and in 
1828 he shed crocodile tears over his grave. In Clinton's speech he intimated 
that the oihcers ot'the U. S. government were " interfering in the slate elections, 
as an organized and disciplined corps,"* and he recommended, as he had done 
before, a state convention to amend the constitution, whose doings should be suu- 
mitted to the people for their verdict. Judge Ulshoeffer reported in the A.-.Rem- 
bly a bill calling such a convention, which Clinton, disapproving of some ot its 
provisions, vetoed in the Council of Revision, he desiring an equal representa- 
tion and that whatever amendments might be made in convention should be sub- 
mitted separately to the people. A new bill next session, first referring the whole 
matter to the electors, passed the legislature, and a third bill ordered the elec- 
tions to take place in June, 1821, and the members to assemble at Albany in 
August. Their proceedings are referred to at length in another part of this 
volume. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Van Bwen electioneers for the Presidency hy telling an untruth. Sincerity the 
first of virtues. The old Buffalo Bank, hy Van Buren, Barker, and the party. 
Van Buren goes for a never-paying hank. The Bvxklail Democracy, Bank 
suspensions, and hard 7noney principles in 1817. 

When Sir Walter Scott's publishers had given to the world Waverley, Guy 
Mannering, and the Antiquary, as anonymous, the baronet was frequently ask- 
ed, ARE you the author? His uniform reply was, "I am not." He after- 
wards owned that he had written these books; and in explanation of his previous 
statement to the contrary, said, " I considered myself like an accused person, 
put on trial, to deny all that could not be proved against me, and refuse evidence 
to my own conviction — in short, I felt entitled to refuse my own evidence to 
disclose that which I wished to conceal." 

Van Buren was introduced to the republic as a candidate for the presidency, 
under the cloak of a friend, always a friend, to a sound specie currency — his 
biographers, his political friends in congress, the presses of his party, and the 
aspirant himself, all chaunted one chorus, and that was in praise of the " real 
hard money man." In his letter to Sherrod Williams, Aug. 8, 1836, he says : 

" In the course of my eight years service in the senate of this state, a very 
large proportion of its banking capital was incorporated, and the journals of that 

*With his message to tlie Assembly, Governor Clinton sent many documents to prove an undue interference of 
the general government with the state elections. He showed that Van Buren, a thorough partisan of the men then 
in power at Washington, liad addressed the following letter to Mr. Meigs, just twenty-one days before the state 
election, urging the post office department to remove certain post-masters, though free uf blame, to serve his party, 
and intimidate by such example, the six hundred and seventy-four post-masters of the slate — bidding Mr. Meigs 
remove them quickly and much good would follow — that is, to remove them before the election and many votes 
would be thereby acquired by the candidates of his party. Mr. Monell made oath that the post-master-general 
had been told that the gentlemen thus named for removal (by Van liuren) were uniform republicans, and that as 
no specific charges had been made against them, it was evident that their removal (for they were turned out) was 
a puni.-ihnient for snjiporting Clinton for governor. The papers sent to the Assembly contained evidence to show 
that Roger Skinner had not been idle at Sandy Hill. Lot Clark, named for a post-master by V. B., figures after- 
wards in the Crawford caucus of 1824. " A government of intluonce and corruption, (said Mr. Clinton,) is the 
worst possible shape which ti republican government can assume, because under the forms of freedom, it combines 
the essence of tyranny." 

Martin l^aii Bwrcn to Henry jMeigv, General P. O., Washington. — " \ iiril, 4, 18'20. — My Dear Sir : Our sufferings , 
owing to the rascality of deputy post-masters, IS intolerable, and CKIKS aloud for relief We find it absolutely 
impossible to penetrate the interior with our papers, and unless we can attain them by two or three prompt removals, 
there is no limiting the injurious consequences that may result from it ; let me, therefore, entreat the post-master 
general to do an act of justice, and render us a partial service, by the removal of Holt, of Herkimer, and the 
appomtment of Jabez Fox, Esq. — Also of Howell, of Bath, and the appointment of an excellent friend, VV. B. 
Rochester, Es(]., a young man of the first res|iectability and worth in the state, and the removal of Smith, at Little 
Falls, and the appointment of llollister, and the removal of Chamberlin, in Oxford, and the ap[iointnieut of Lot 
Clark, Esq. J am in e.xtreme haste, and can, therefore, add no more. Use the enclosed papers according to your 
dibcretioh ; and if anything is done, let it be quickly done, and you may rely upon it, much good will result from 
it. Yours afuctimately, M. V. BUREN. 

April 15, 18ii(). Hon. R. J. Meigs, Jun'r. — Sir: From various representations which have been made to me ic 
regard to the mal-practices of the post-master at Norwich, I most cordially unite with Mr. Van Bnren in recoiQ- 
mending bui removul> aud the ttpi>ointment of Mr. Lot Cluik. JOHN B. DRAKE, (M, C.) 



VAN buren's bank principles—1816 and 1836. 31 

lody will show that I took an active part in all the qiiesthns which arose upon the 
suhject. Most of the applications for banks that loere rejected, viU he found to have 
been so disposed of onmri motion ; AND EVERY APPLICATION, SAVE ONE, 
WILL BE FOUND "TO HAVE MY VOTE RECOHDRD AGAINST IT. 
THE EXCEPTION was that of a hank establislied at BUFFALO at the close 
of the war. It was established with the avowed desin;n of enabling the inhabit- 
ants the more speedily to rebuild the town after it had been burnt by the enemy. 
That my vote in that particular case would be governed by that consideration, 
and should not be construed into a departure from the course which I had pre- 
scribed to myself, was stated in my place. The motive proved in that in- 
stance as delusive as usual." ' 

This was as far from the truth as Scott's first assertion about the authorship 
of Waverley ; but, doubtless, Van Buren well knew that his hard money voters 
would, in general, read only their own parly journals, and listen to no orators 
beyond the pale of their sect. Party, or rather faction, is every thing. The 
people at elections move as armies do, under command. The mind that directs 
is not that of the people, or of any great part of them, but of men who are call- 
ed leaders — an oligarchy to all intents and purposes. Their leaders were, in 
general, aware that Van Buren had no principles whatever — that he had pro- 
fessed every thing, or anything, and been on any and every side — but they en- 
dorsed his orthodoxy, because he suited their purposes, and he succeeded. 

To show how necessary it is to investigate character by the use of well 
ascertained facts, this volume is written. Van Buren and his confederates are 
on trial, and the testimony for their conviction shall be ample, clear, and un- 
doubted. Let us hope that the time fast hastens in which it will be esteemed 
infamous to gain power and influence by false pretences. Even Lucifer, when 
about to approach the mother of mankind with falsehood on his lips, doffed his 
natural form and garb as a fallen angel, and assumed the guise of the serpent 
as best suited to the deceitful part he was about to act. Blair tells us that 
" sincerity is the basis of every virtue'" — Thomson, that it is " the first of vir- 
tues." Were it in more general use among the lawyers, priests and politicians, 
America would again become the Eden from which the effects of the first false- 
hood, from Tophet, drove our first parents. 

The Bank of Niagara at Buftalo was chartered in 1816 — Van Bnren was 
then attorney-general, and the bucktail leader in the state senate — his friend 
Jacob Barker was a senator from the city of New York ; and his brother-in-law, 
major Cantine, a senator from Columbia, Greene, tfcc. Van Buren, on this occa- 
sion, made the only effort I ever heard of to gran! a bank a charter during a time 
when cash payments were suspended, with the condition that it should never be 
required to pay specie, unless when it thought fit, but might go on twenty years, 
issuing notes, promising to pay specie, but never fulfilling that promise. 

Jonas Williams and others memorialized the senate on the 6th of Feb. for a 
bank at Buffalo, with $750,000 capital, stating that the agricultural and com- 
mercial pursuits of the people required it, but not one word about " rebuilding 
the town." The memorial was referred to Jacob Barker, Philetus Swift, and 
A. S. Clark, who reported a bill chartering a bank. The bill was considered 
in committee of the whole on the 8th of March, on which occasion Van Buren 
rose and stated, that its provisions met his hearty approbation, and that he should 
vote for it. He did so — so did Cantine. Barker kept below the bar. Two- 
thirds of the senate went for the bill, which passed. Its provisions are import- 
ant, as shewing Van Buren's views in 1816, after the state banks had suspended, 
the United States Bank been put down, and he had had much experience as a 
Hudson Bank director, attorney-general, &c. 

The bill provided, 1. That the Stockholders, none of them liable for its debts. 



32 THE OLD BANK OF BUFFALO— PAY WHEN YOU FLEASE. 

should continue to be a corporation till 1832. Even then it was planned to have 
all the bank monopoly charters run out as near together as possible, that the 
powers of corruption might be invoked, as they were in 1829, to perpetuate 
them. — 2. The capital was to be $400,000. — 3. One notice in one paper in the 
county, 30 days before an election of directors, was to be sufficient; and stock- 
holders were to vote in person or by proxy. 4. If John was a poor farmer with one 
share ($50) he was to give one vote. If his brother Martin had 500 shares, he 
was empowered to give one vote more alone than 499 farmers with a share 
each, taken together. [Would Van Buren like to introduce this sort of de- 
mocracy at the ballot boxes ?] 5. The bank was not to be compelled lo pay specie 
for any bank notes it might issue, by virtue of the charter. G. The first di- 
rectors were to be chosen by the Legislature. 7. And might begin to bank and 
issue notes when they pleased ; and call on the stockholders to pay 10 or 12^ 
cents in the dollar on their shares at first, and the rest when they saw fit. 

The Senate, without knowing who would or who wouldn't take stock, named 
the first directors, and took care to appoint one of themselves on the board. 
There was no commission named to apportion the stock equally — it was left to 
be jobbed for. The Jefferson Co. bank bill appointed commissioners, and left 
it to the shareholders to elect directors. Van Buren voted against it, and against 
the Herkimer Co. bank petition, March 28th. The banks he voted against suc- 
ceeded better than those he supported. 

On the 5th of April, 1816, (see the senate journals,) the Council of Revision 
admonished Van Buren, Cantine and their majority in the Senate, that it would 
be unjust to allow the Niagara Bank bill to pass into a law unless it were 
amended so that if the bank issued paper it might be bound to redeem it in 
money — that it need not pay out a dollar in money as the bill was drawn ; and 
that if it had no money to pay bills with it had better not issue any, because 
the more banks there were issuing such paper the less of specie we would see 
in the state. It was notorious (said the Council) that for more than a twelve- 
month the incorporated banks of the State had refused to redeem their notes in 
specie. They had found it far more gainful to sell their dollars to the usurers 
of Europe, and to charge our merchants a high premium for silver, while they 
glutted the American market with paper promises on which they charged 7 per 
cent, interest, though they cost them nothing. They further urged, that this 
was the first attempt made in this State to give special privileges to a new 
Bank, since the old ones had defied the public and refused to pay their debts ; 
and that they, (the Council,) returned the bill to the Senate, because they wished 
to protect the public against the multiplication of corporations issuing a currency 
which they refused to convert into cash on demand. 

On the 10th of April, (see senate journal, page 236,) VAN BUREN made 
a speech to ])ersuade two-thirds of the members of the Senate to incorporate the 
Bank in spite of the Council of Revision, and WITHOUT A SPECIE PAY- 
ING CLAUSE, in the very teeth of its honest objections. He MOVED TO 
INSEKT A CLAUSE TO THAT EFFECT, and thus pass the bill! On 
the 1 1th, the bill was reconsidered in committee of the whole, but as it was found 
utterly impracticable to get two-thirds to vote for paper currency, not payable 
in cash, by a direct vote, the Councirs amendment had to be reluctantly adopted 
by the " democrats," and Van Buren and Cantine again voted for the Bank, 
which became a bad law. 

Altho' Van Buren could not get a clause in the bill to permit the bank to flood 
the country with paper promises it would be under no obligation to redeem, he 
contrived that the charter should allo\V the bank to stop when it had no specie^ 
buy in its worthless rags at 10 or 12 cents to the dollar, and begin again as 
often as it pleased to play this game. It did so, and cheated the public whole. 



VAN BUREN's buffalo AND CHENANGO BANKS, 33 

sale. I sold its notes in 1820 and in 1821, eight dollars for one — the State was 
defrauded out of its deposits, the farmers out of their produce, and the 
mechanic out of the fruits of his labor. Once more the bank started, its Presi- 
dent was indicted for cheating, J. Barker was to have $5,000 for procuring a 
$25,000 loan to keep it going, but it broke again before aid could get to Butialo, 
Kibbe, its first President, was a Burrite, concerned in frauds by which the Mer- 
chants' Bank Charter passed in 1805, and one of " the lobby." General 
Swartwout writes (1823), " My Dear Morrison — The Dutchess must pass the 
House on Tuesday, and yours [the Chemical Bank] will pass the Senate on 
Wednesday, certain. See Kibbie as soon after dinner as possible — he knows 
the cords to pull upon, and will carry you triumphantly through. Your friend, 
KoB. Swartwout." Van Buren's bank initiated the Buffalo people, who had 
become such proficients in the mysteries that thirteen banks broke down in that 
place, cheating the weaver of cloth, and the grower of wheat, wool, &c.,out of 
at least three millions of dollars. 



CHAPTER X 



Even Abon Hassan, the most disinterested of all viceroys, forgot not, during his Caliphate of one 
day, to send a douceur of one thousand pieces of gold to nis own household. — Walter Scott. 

Van Biireiis confederates blow vp the old Buffalo bank. — Its cashier (not Hoyi) 
becomes State Printer to the Bucklails. — Marcij, Leake, and the New Hape^ 
Del. Irridge Company. — Van Biiren not fond of swarms of Banks. — How he 
acted with the Chenango Bank Charter. — Walworth, Van Buren, arid the old 
and new Plattsbiirgh Banks — On taxing Bank Stock, and chartering Utica 
and OiUario Branch Banks. — Clinton and the Assembly of N. Y. defeated by 
Van Buren and his hold over Senate in an effort to expose errors in, and amend 
the Banking System. — The Pennsylvania arid Ohio Banks. 

By reference to pages 154 and 155, letters 9, 10, and 11, it will be seen that 
B. F. Butler had a keen scent ; he wanted Hoyt to be cashier, and Barker 
owner of the BuffMo bank which Van Buren had created, and which was then 
ready to burst up. Van Buren's unprincipled followers had it in their own 
hands from the commencement. Isaac Kibbie was its first President, and Isaac 
Q. Leake its first cashier; and when it broke down in 1819,* Van Buren in- 



* Attorney General Taicott applied to Chancellor Sanford in 1824, enumerating the enor- 
mities of Van Buren's Buffalo bank, with a view to the sponging off its charter from the 
statute book, but it couldn't be done. Perhaps, like a Scotch peerage, it's only dormant now. 
In 183G, its parent. Van Buren, gravely addressed S. "Williams thus : — " As if anxious to con- 
tribute their share to this inroad upon the policy of the federal constitution, the state govern- 
ments have not only created swarms of banking institutions, but until recently, most of these 
institutions were authorized to issue notes of as low a denomination as a single dollar. The 
consequences of this departure from the appropriate functions of the federal and state govern- 
ments, have been extensively injurious. That gold and silver should constitute a much 
greater proportion of the circulating medium of the country than they now do, is a position 
which few are disposed to deny." 

On the 20th of April, 1818, during the same session of the Van Buren majority in the 
Senate, all hurry and bustle to hasten favorite measures, on speculation, a bill from the 
Assembly, to withdraw from the democracy, the many, and confer on the ari.stocracy, the few, 
more power and influence, came up in the form of a bill to incorporate the Bank of Chenango. 
What madness is it that blinds the tillers of the soil to their best interests 1 Such a bank 
confers on a few anxious gamblers power to hire and employ lying attorneys and lying editors ; 
to tax the country many thousands of dollars yearly for the use of the idle and profligate; to 
make paper money promises scarce in a country, or plentiful, at pleasure ; to hire election- 
eering oracles and orators ; to bespatter honesty and sincerity in homespun with falsehood ; 



34 LEAKE AND CANtlNE, VAN BUREN AND THE PLATTSBURGH BANKS. 

vited Leake to join his brother-in-law, Cantine, as one of the state printers, 
and joint editor of his mouth-piece, the Albany Argus. Leake was turned out 
of the Argus by Van Buren in 1824 to make way for Croswell, and sent out to 
Pennsylvania to take charge of another leaky vessel, or bank craft, as treasurer 
of the New Hope, Delaware Bridge Company, a concern such as Van Buren 
would have made the Buffalo Bank if he could, with power to fail from time to 
time, compound and so on again, for ever. It went down in lb21, the treasurer 
vanished. Leake & Co. began again in 1825, and in 1826, we find him puffing 
the frail bark in the N. Y. Evening Post. Governor Marcy was one of its bor- 
rowers, and a knot of speculators used it in N. Y. as Butler and Barker did the 
Washington and Warren. The Pennsylvanians were so often pillaged that they 
drove it°out of their State, and it is now set up again the six*h time, and its notes 
have a wide circulation, hailing from the Jersey side of the Delaware. 

In 1817, Reuben Hyde Walworth appeared before the legislature, as senior 
petitioner for a bank charter, of like character with the others, to be located at 
Plattsburo-h, the stock to be discreetly distributed, &c. Senators Hascall, Bloom, 
and Waller Bowne, of the Seventh Ward Bank, N. Y., reported that the land 
round Plattsburgh is " fruitful in' the productions of the earth," like Canaan of 
old ; and that "^it is believed that a bank will enable the merchants to purchase 
this' produce, and save the farmers much, if not the entire, transportation to 
Montreal." Of course they reported a bank bill, which passed the Senate in 
committee on the 21st of March (page 222 of Journal) : Van Buren and Cantine 
declared that they could not possibly support the measure, and recorded their 
votes to throw it out, but failed ; yeas 14, nays only 11. Next day two addi- 
tional senators were present, and it was seen that if Van Buren and his brother- 
in-law should both hold out, the bill would be lost, 14 to 13. This would 
never do. Nor would it suit Van Buren to wheel round on such a short 
notice. The leader therefore kept among the nays on the final passage of the 
bill, but Cantine declared that he had got a new light within the last twenty-four 
hours, and immediately reversed his vote, thus securing the passage of the charter 
in the Senate, by a majority of one.* He played the same suspicious game on 

to ioin with others in becoming bankrupt, and refusing payment of debts, while compelling 
individuals to fulfil their obligations to the bank ; and, should the concern become insolvent, 
widespread ruin ensues, while those whose folly or guilt, or both, did the mischiel, lie by, 
ready to lobby at Albany for new means to plunder by law, when public indignation is hush- 
On the above day the Senate went into committee on the Chenango bank charter, Va7i 
nuren being most appropriately in the chair. Senator Yates moved to reject it as anti- 
democratic, &c. But the party loved it, it promised to add to their temporary power, to yie d 
enormous gain on the .slock, and form an ofisct against the opposition. Major Cantine held 
up both hands in its favor ; Samuel Young declared that his heart was in it ; the committee 
rose- Van Buren reported that the bill had been adopted; no one even whispered \cr-i^vc its 
the ai/cs and noes," as was usual ; the bill was ordered to go ahead without even a division. 

Had Mr Van Bu)-cn been averse to this charter, he would have called for the ayes and 
noes on the report, but he agreed to its reception ; and when the bill was engrossed and 
pas.sed(sce Senate Journal, pages 3.53 and 354),Canlinc,Skinner, andSamuel Young, voted lor 
it while Van Buren slipped below the bar to avoid a vote, Icnowing that his mends votes would 
eAsure the success of the bill. Here, again, the oflicial records of the State give the lie to his 
assertion that " eveiy application [for a bank] save one, would be found to have his vote 

recorded against it." . . . ,v,„ i.. „ ,>„.. 

*In l-T) the hank of Pliittslmrfih explnded, and there were many recriminations amonR the dtnioirAcj. 
.I.idge Piatt' prosecuted Comptroller V\uK. tl.en a spimky country editor, tor libel ; the bank direcl..r.< pros^^^ 
PiKtf the fi'rmers found their produce In thi.t " fruitful " land transmuted mto bank pupci ot bad repute , and 
Van Uuren contrratulated irunselfin ndt having voted with brother Cantine in 1817. 

To help Van Buren to the Presidency In 1830, the party chartered a second b-ink «t P attsburgli , and, with 
no ^'ood 'v,ll towards Clinton, named it'after him. The nominal capiu.l was S200,000 ; the real >v."ney n Us 
vaults very little indeed. For som<i three or four years its president and cashier managed its all.iirs almost 
exclusively, and appropriated its funds to '.heir private use, or for the benefit of their ^''l^''^^^"; . ^.^eV were of 
the class called speculators ; their obligations are worthless ; and as to bnnuing the lazy dui'Ctots to book, lor 
the benefit of ihe blll-hokle/s, the oligarchy, who rule, do not encouwge such practices. 



VAN buren's plans for reforming the banking system. 35 

the same day in the case of the Geneva bank, coming quietly round to the side 
of monopoly the moment his vote was wanted. What a pity Jesse Hoyt's 
memoranda, papers and correspondence,* did not extend back to 1818, and dis- 
close the WEIGHTY reasons which induced the Van Buren slate printer to make 
these somersets ! 

Mr. 0. A. Brownson, one of the writers in the Democratic Review, assures 
us, January 1S42, that "Bankers, capitalists, corporators, stockjobbers, specu- 
lators, and trafficking politicians control the government, and, in nearly all cases, 
shape its policy." Is not Van Buren, and has he not been for 38 years, since 
1808, one of the most artful and crafty of these " trafficking politicians 1" 

In 1816, (Senate Journal, April 16, pages 202, 203,) an excellent resolution 
was called up for consideration, in substance as follows : " That as the several 
chartered banks had for some time wholly refused to pay their notes, when 
required to do so by those who held them — the safety of the public demanded 
some investigation into their affairs — and that the Comptroller be required on or 
after December next to call on such banks as shall not by that date have begun 
to pay what they owe to the people, who hold their promises, in specie — to give 
some account of their affairs, each bank on the oath of its president and cashier, 
showing, 1. The amount of their notes in circulation. 2. What amount of debt 
they owe. 3. What sum they have in specie. 4. How much monpy is due 
the bank by individuals. 5. And how much from other banks. 6. What was 
the proportion between the funds the}' had on hand, and the amount of bills 
discounted during the three months before such bank stopped payment — and, 
after that time, what was it during each three months up to the time on which 
the return might be made. 7. And, generally, a full and fair account of the 
bank concerns, so that the legislature, on behalf of the country, might adopt 
such measures next session as the public welfare would be found to require. 

What could be more just, appropriate, and imperiously called for than the 
above inquiry, during a suspension of cash payments '? Yet most true it is, that 
Van Buren, the leader of the faction who have for many years denounced their 
opponents as the bank party — Van Buren and his aide-de-camp, Cantine, offered 
to the adoption of the above resolve a powerful and steady opposition,* and 

' In 1818, (see pa2:e 163 of the Sanate .Tournal.) the Assembly, on the recommendation of Govfrnor Clinton 
and complaint of the people in various parts of the State, havins; adopted a resolution, sent it, March 20, to the 
Senate for conciu-nnie, as follows : 

"Resolved, (if the Senate concur herein) that a Joint Committee of the Senate and Assembly be appointed 
to inquire into the mode tmd man er in wliich tlie several incorporated banks within this State have adminis- 
tered the trust ; ranted to them ; and whether any or either of the officers, agents or directors, or other persons 
by them authoii/ed, have secietly or impliedly (livertid any part of ttie funds thereof to any im roper purposes, 
or have made use of any undue means for tht- purposi; of forcing their paper into circulation ; and whether 
they have at all times promptly complied with all the demands mad'.- upon them for tlie pavment of their notes 
111 specie ; and wiiether any or eitlier of the said officers, .ments, or directors, have been guilty of any fraudulent 
or usuiious practices as such ; and whether any or either of them have used or now do use any of the funds of 
either of the said banks for covenous or opiiressive purposes: and also that the committee be instructed to in- 
quire by what means the several incorporated banks in this State procured their charters. Tliat the said com- 
mittee liave power lo send for persons and papers, and that tliey report their proceedings to this legislature with 
all convenient speed; and in case of such concurrence, that Mr. Person, Mr. Duer, Mr. Root, Mr. Lawrence, 
and Mr. Webb be of the said committee on the part of this House." 

To Van Buren and his band of deceitful preteretpis to democracy — the pharisees of the Senate — such a resolve 
was gall and wormwond. How would the Washington and Warren, the Old BulfaR), and otiier pretended banks 
have stood a si^arching investigation into their operations and standing ? They could not do it. 

Next day, March 21, Van Buren and some others of the majority delivered able and eloquent speeches in favor 
of the hanks and the bankers. It was s id that their usefulness, honesty, rectiiude, and proper conduct were be- 
yond all question — that to doubt them was to doubt tlie honor of the honorable gentlemen who presiiled at their 
shrines— rliat the people would be indignant at the insult offered m the resolution to " the democratic banks," 
the friends of liberty, equality, and a better currency — and that all inquiry must be resisted, in every shape and 
fiirin. It will be found hy reference to the Senate Journal, of March 21, that " Mr. Pp'sident put the question 
whether the Senate woulil aciee to the said resolution, and it passed in the negative. Therefore, resolved, that 
the Senate DO NOT CONCUR," &c. 

The resolution v.hich Van Buren and his parly thus voted dov\n in the Senate, had passed tlie Assembly 70 to 
30, Mes^srs. Root, Edwards and Sharpe for, and Mr. Oakley against it. It was based on Governor Clinton's really 
prophetic message, and an excellent report by Mr. Isaac Pierson, from the Assembly's Committee. Judge Ulslioef- 
ier wished logo I'urlher still — he moved "to institute an inquirv into the measures now taking by bank appli- 
cants to procure charters," but was out- voted. Van Buren and the Banks had agreed ihut all enqtiiry should be 



36 VAN BUREN ON BANK ENQUIRY. OHIO BANKING. 

acting as the agents or instruments of the dehnquent bankers, succeeded in 
quashing inquiry. They both voted against the resolution — neither of them 
suggested or oflered any substitute. [See Journal, p. 203.] The Bankers put 
their feet on the people's necks — increased in number and in power — bank 
presses were set up — grumblers were conciliated — false beacons held up to 
delude the millions — and the flatterers, the vile parasites of the most uneducated 
of the population, attained a bad eminence by the worst of means, and avarice, 
and false ambition were satiated with wholesale plunder out of the blood and 
sweat of our too generous and confiding countrymen. That a system thus 
successful should embolden the immoral to deeds of wholesale villainy — that 
banks, thus the masters of the legislature, should not be very particular as to the 
Golconda or Potosi whence their wealth was derived — is not to be wondered at 



CHAPTER XI. 



Knowest thou not that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but 
for a moment 1 Though his excellency mount up to the Heavens, and his head reach unto 
the clouds ! )-et he shall perish : a fire not blown shall consume him ; it shall go ill with him 
that is left in his tabernacle. — Job, chap. xx. 

Why did President Polk appoint Ex-President Butler to, and xchy does he 
continue him in the office of U. S. District Attorney ? — Butler'' s extortions when 
district attorney binder Van Buren. — His religious hypocrisy. — Ritchie censures 
the author for uncloaking Butler, Van Buren, Coddhigton and others. — 
Buller''s brief history. — He studies law and politics with Van Buren, and 
becomes his law-partner. — Jacob Barker buys the Washington and Warren 
Bank charier, and sets Butler up as its mock President — Halsey Rogers. — 
Van Buren carries the Bank cunningly through the Legislature, and sup- 
ports the Auburn bank. — Swart and Mallory. — Butler''s bank roguery, or the art 
and mystery of M. Van Buren's System of Stale Banking, happily illustrated 
by the practice of his law-partner, up at Sandy Hill. — Lessons for young 
Bankers and Brokers. — ' Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee., thou 
Prince of Liars .'' — Barker, Hoyt and Butler play a steady game of brag, and 
seek to puff their worthless rags, through the Patroon,Van Rensselaer. — Stated- 
Preaching. 

When Mr. Polk, in May, 1845, had perused the letters of John Van Buren, 
J. I. Coddington, and others, to Jesse Hoyt, which appeared in my Lives of 
Hoyt and Butler, he remarked, that he would not give Mr. Coddington the office 
of Collector of the Port of New York, which, on the recommendation and 
advice of Butler, Van Buren, and others, he had promised to him, through 
General Dix, but would appoint a man of his own. The place was bestowed 
on Corneliu.s W. Lawrence. 

If Coddington's language, and his intimacy and connection with Hoyt, 
Swartwout, and other defaulters, produced this change in the President's views 

quashed. In Pennsylvania, Ilie fannerB, with the honpst part of the community genprally, had suflercd 
torribly from pretended bankers, chartcud hy ndvire of Snyder, tlie Van Buren of that State. An immense 
amoimt of properly wa.s sacrificed by the slieritf, and corrupt men plnycd any parr likely to brinj; them (.Icnty 
of public plunder. Dr. Joel B. Sutherl.md's private letter to M'Coy (page 18'.*, No. 93), lills the curtain on a 
state of society imythinj; but enviable. This year, too, in Nov., the Cincinnati banks stopped payment, owing 
the U. S. Bank S7.50 000 for their notes received by Secretary Crawford'.s order, in payment of the Public 
Lands. One of these. Ilie Miami ExportlnR Company, has ever been in bad hands, seeminply. Its fidlure, 
for the fourth time, in 184-i. so enrajied the citizens, that they completely riddled it, as also the Cincinnati 
Bank. That did no iiiimetliatc good, but may serve as a warning to others to fly low, and tints prevent a 
more extensive vi(rlation of order. 

I will refer more fully to Clinton's message of fliis year when describing Van Buren's dishonest scheme of 
1B29, called the Suliety Fund system. 



POLK AND BUTLER, A QUESTION OF COMMON HONESTY. 



37 



in May, 1845, with regard to him, of what consists the secret power, by means 
of which Benjamin F. Butler has been continued in office as the U. S. District 
Attorney at New York, from that lime till now, in view of as full and ample a 
record of fraud and dishonesty as ever secured for a criminal a cell in the state 
prison ? Mr. Polk is a strict professor of religion, avows himself to be a 
democrat, and has been raised to the highest station in the gift of fifteen millions 
of freemen. In September last, Mr. Butler's fraudulent conduct, as President 
of the Washington and Warren Bank, was shown in the clearest terms — his 
partner in iniquity swore that the letters which gave evidence of his guilt, were 
all o-enuine* — the evidence on the records of Congress, with reference to the 
New York Custom House defaults, seizures, and prosecutions, while Butler 
held the office under Van Burent which Mr. Polk replaced him in, is a disgraceful 
exhibition of wholesale legal extortion — and all this under the cloak of a pious, 
evangelical professor of religion, careless about worldly wealth, and engrossed 
with the cares of Heaven-seeking, stated preaching, the gospel, a savor of life 
unto life, and the terror of Tophet to those " who neglect so great salvation." 
Not only has Mr. Polk continued to endorse the availability of Butler, as the 
incumbent of one of the most influential and lucrative offices in the department 

* Benjamin F. Butler, many vears the law-pavtner of Van Biu-en, is a son of Medad But- 
ler, a smith, afterwards clerk to Stephen Hogeboom, and iinally tavern-keeper at Kinderhook 
Landing, N. Y., an industi-ious, pains-taking man, whom the Van Buren interest placed in 
the House of Assembly, and afterwards made him, about 1824, a County Judge. Benjamin 
was his assistant in his public house ; but as he gave evidence of talent, imited to great cun- 
)iing and shrewdness, and a love for reading, he sent him to study law with Van Bm-en at 
Hudson, in 1811. In 1817, Van Buren made him his law-partner. In 1818, Butler got 
manied— and next year tried what he supposed to be a smrer and speedier road to riches— the 
banking business. 

Old Butler was a prominent professor of religion — very conspicuous in the Presbyterian 
Church ; but having been rebuked for some carelessness "or other, he joined the Methodists 
for a time. His son Benjamin was (or seemed to be) fervent in spirit, earnest, and eloquent 
in prayer at meetings of the saints. He was really famous and celebrated in early life as an 
exhorter to faith and repentance. I have letters from Columbia Coimty and Albany, -WTitten 
by worthy citizens, who remember him, nearly thirty years since, a zealous, devout-looking, 
and very conspicuous professor of holiness. He acquired religious, legal, and political capi- 
tal in this way ; and so strong had the habit of reproving sinners, and pla3ing the saint 
abroad, become in him, that he actually played it off, occasionally, on his partner in iniquitj', 
Jesse Hoj-t, while engaged in scenes of pillage and rascality, the exposure of some of which 
has astonished even Wall Street, N. Y., and the Bank Charter Factory, at Albany. 

t II will be seen by reference to R. H. Nevins's letter of instructions to his friend Hoyt, that the Wall-street 
brokers are quite averse to a direct tax on bank stock ; and with reason. Confusion in the currency, fancy 
stiicks, doubtful institutions, are among their surest props. A tax on bank capital would be apportioned accord- 
ing to its nominal amount, and such banks as Nevius describes, No. 118, page 189, with five millions capital 
" only a few thousand dollars in specie, and bank credits for the balance," would sutler, as they ought. In 
1818, the Assembly passed a bill to lay a tax on bank stock (page ;?49, Senate Journal), but Van Uuren, Cantine, 
Bowne, and Tibbets, opposed it in the Senate. Young was in its favor. It was the close of the session, and 
the bill was put to sleep. Next year (1819), on the 8th of April (p. 273 of Journal), the Assembly again sent 
up a bill to tax bank stock for the benefit of the common schools of the State— and why not 7 Van Buren 
opposed it, to the delight of the brokers and bankers ; but was ready that same session to impose and collect a 
direct tax out of the poor farmer's hard earnings. The regency went against it, Van Vechten went with them. 
Young did not vote, and in 18-23 we find Nevins instructing his fit representative, J. Hoyt, on the same subject. 

On the 15th of March, 1915, a bill came from the Assembly to grant the bank of Utica a charter for a branch, 
or additional bank, by the same owners, at Canandiugua, with a president, twelve directors, &c. The Senate',s 
first vote (pages 238-9, Journal), was, yeas 13, nays 9; Van Buren invisible, Cantine a yea. It was moved 
that the notes being issued at both places, should be payable at both. Lost, 12 to 10, Van Buren invisible, 
Cantine a nay. Radclifle moved a clause, declarinc that the legislature may at any time repeal or amend this 
bill. Lost, nays 12, yeas 10. Cantine a nay. Van Buren invisible. The bill was thrown out, March ii3d, vote 
11 to 11, Van Buren invisible. 

Now was the time for Van Buren to reappear in his place in the Senate. He wanted the bill to pass, but 
also to avoid responsibility. When he saw it could not be carried without his help, he voted for a motion to 
reconsider the vote by which it had been lost, which required two-thirds of the Senators, and having thus 
restored it to the orders of the day, he recorded his name in its favor and it passed, and the directors of the 
bank of Utica were forthwith enabled to establish a branch in connection with theirs at Canandaigua, for all 
purposes except that of redeeming in cash, the notes they might issue there ! We next find him voting for a 
branch bank of the bank of Ontario at Utica; and again (p. 332), for an additional or branch b;ink of the New- 
burgh Bank at Ithaca. To comprehend the real character of this cunning and deceitful politician, his more 
recent votes, language, and conduct, must be kept in view. 



38 VAN BUREN INTRIGUING FOR THE WASHINGTON AND WARREN BANK. 

of public justice, but he even went so far as to direct Thomas Ritchie, the 
organ, advocate, or mouthpiece of his government, to censure me in the harshest 
terms for exposing Butler's hypocrisy, avarice and rapacity, which Ritchie did 
accordingly through the columns of the Daily Union. Is there a bar^-ain 
between the parties ? Are they members of a mutual insurance company r 

On the first week in March,' 1S19, in the 24th year of his age, B. F. Butler 
took up his abode at the village of Sandy Hill, in the county of Washington, 
fifty or sixty miles north of Albany, as lawyer, christian exhorter, and president 
of the Washington and Warren Bank, a ' monied corporation' of two years 
standing,* which the notorious stockjobber, Jacob Barker, had bought from the 



* The Washington and Warren Bank Charter ma)' be found in the Statutes of New 
York for 1817. Its provisions were very much akin to those of the old bank of Niagara, at 
Buffalo. It will be seen that Halsey Rogers, who is described in Sudam's Report, on the 
Senate Journal of 1824, as one of those unprincipled creatures v/ho hang upon the legislature, 
for gain, as lobby members — vile characters, guilty of letting themselves out for such rewards 
as may be extoned from the hopes and fears of the timid and desperate — was appointed a 
commissioner to distribute the stock. 

The bill originated in the Assembly. On the 24th of March, 1817, the Senate (Van Buren) 
threw it out — Van Buren and his brother-in-law, Cantine, the State-printer, both speaking 
and voting against it. 

Four days after, Senator Hart moved to restore the bill. This required two-thirds of the 
Senate, which had then 27 members. If Mr. Van Biu-en was opposed to banks, why did he 
vote for this bill, when kis mere absence would have prevented it from being again placed on 
the order of the day 1 And having done so, why did he deny it in 183G, and declare, in his 
Sherrod Williams letter, that he had never voted but for the old Buffalo bankl Are not 18 
two-thirds of 27 — and was not he one of the 18 '? Was not his relative, Cantine ol' the Aigus, 
another 1 AVhat sort of arguments had the applicants for this bank used in the course of the 
four days with a couple of money-loving lawyers, who had " special privileges" to bcstoAV or 
^vithhold, which induced them to talk and vote on both sides — for and against — bank and anti- 
bank"? 

" I have always been opposed to the increase of banks," said Van Buren, in his letter to 
Sherrod Williams. How could he be expected to add, " and therefore recommended and 
voted for them !" "I have known Mr. Van Bmen long and intimately," said Senator Ben- 
ton. " He is a real hard-money man ; opposed to the paper system ; in favor of a national 
currency of gold." Yet this hard-money man could wheel about and restore to life the Wash- 
ington and Wan'en Bank, receiving a new light within the space of four days : and his law- 
partner, Butler, could, with his advice and consent, accept the Presidency of that fraudulent 
corporation — and when it had closed its doors, return back to his old partnership. " An in- 
troduction of a new bank into the most distant of our villages, places the business of that 
village within the influence of the money power of England," said Mr. Van Buren, in a Pre- 
sidential message from Washington — but he omitted to add that he had placed within that, 
and other yet worse influences, the bank once located up at Sandy Hill. 

The " restoration" of the Washington and Warren Bank Bill took place on the 28th — Mr. 
Enos T. Throop's Auburn Bank bill passed the Senate next day, without an opj)osing voice 
— Van Buren and everybody else being in its favor. Next came the final passage ot the 
Washington and Warren (March 31st), and the Senate that had been 15 to 13 against it, sent 
it up to the Governor and Council, by a vote of 15 to (1. Cantine now for the bill — Van 
Bm-en below the bar ! Senators Mallory and Swart had voted it down at their leader's bid- 
iliug, on the 24th ; now they wheeled into line and voted it up again ! Governor Marcy 
describes Mallory as one of the most upright of men, and he threw up the American because 
Charles King expressed a doubt. 

The W. and W. Bank bill provided that it was to issue its notes whenever the stockholders 
had paid into its vaults ten cents on the dollar of its capital, and that the operations of dis- 
count and deposit were to be carried on at Sandy Hill only. What its opcralkms there con- 
sisted in, may be seen by consulting the descriptive epistles of Mr. President Butler. By the 
month of Febniary, 1819, its promises to pay $278,693 were in the hands of the people, in the 
form of bank notes, yielding Mr. Barker 5i)19,528 of interest, from that source alone. How 
was it in February, 1820 1 

Senator Hammond, from a Committee on Bank Charter granting (see Senate Journal, 
I8l8, pages 144 and 145), reported that the cha'rter for a bank incorporation, called the Wash- 
ington and Warren Bank, could be of no use to the section of country where it was nomi- 
nally located, as the stock was nearly all held by a private banker in New York City (Barker), 



Polk's district attorney officiatino as a bank president. 39 

speculators who got it up. Barker could issue its bills at his Exchange Bank, 
New York, to mechanics and traders, who would find it no easy task to go north 
to Sandy Hill to get them cashed. With brokers and bankers he expected to 
be able to hold his own. 

Jacob Barker being the sole, or almost, sole proprietor of this veal ' wild- 
cat' bank, Butler was selected as his colleague, and duly installed as its President, 
Director and Bank Attorney. His correspondence v/ith Hoyt and Barker, 
published in pages 151 to 165, of this volume, running through a period of 
fifteen months, will surely satfsfy the most sceptical, that Van Buren could net 
have recommended a more suitable coadjutor, as the legal adviser of General 



on .whose credit its circulation depended ; and that though it pretended to do business at 
Sandy Hill, its real location was New York. 

On reference to Butler's correspondence, page 155, he will be found exerting himself with 
Butler in favor of Ho}t, as a suitable Cashier to the old, thrice-insolvent Bank of Niagara, 
at Buffalo, the charter for which Van Bui-en di-ew and voted for. Leake, one of the iState 
printers, had had the office for a time. 

On the 21st of June, 1819, Butler employed Hoyt to collect small change, with which to 
' tease the enemy,' (p. 156.) In other words, he wanted shillings and sixpences, wherewith 
to mock the honest farmers who had given their wheat for his bills, with a pretence of pay- 
ment. There was A RUN on the bank, and he says that he had redeemed on the Monday 
and Tuesda}', two days, ^180, being ■$390 per day, during a run! He had in the bank just 
S1400 in specie, being enough (he tells Barker) "for three or fom- days more. At this time 
the Bank had perhaps ^500,030 of its notes afloat in the country. Two persons having sent 
S1G6 in notes to be cashed (page 157), the enraged financier threatened that, if any more 
such demands were made upon him, he would " put them on the same ground with the 
others" — that is, he would pretend to pay them in their turn, he paying " in a slow way," in 
sixpences, to some other real or imaginary creditor, during ' bank hours.' 

Two or three bankers and brokers had taken in payment $10,000 of Butler's notes from 
their debtors. They sent Gilchrist and Wiswall up to Sandy Hill to get the cash. Butler 
had only $1400, but he pretended to pay. " I have told Mr. Gilchrist (says he to Hoyt, page 
157) that I was ready to pay specie, and would pay specie at all times during banking hours ; 
and that I would pay nothing else." Now this was a falsehood, for all he had was gl400, 
which could have been counted in 15 to 30 minutes, and Gilchrist had asked good notes or 
specie for S5,600, and Wiswall for about $4,000. Next day, June 23d, he bade Ho}1; to pro- 
claim tlirough Albany the solvency of the bank. " Tell all persons (said he, page 157) that 
the bank has not stopped, and will not stop payment, and that we pay in specie." This was a 
bold and impudent untruth, as his previous, letters show, and its object was to induce the 
merchants and dealers to take the notes for goods. If he knew that the bank had means to 
pay — and he M'as a deceiver of the people if he held his office, in ignorance of its real condi- 
tion — I say, if he knew this (and he says he did), why were the public cheated, on his advice 1 
What became of the bank funds 1 Was the W. and W. B. a tender to Barker's iasolvent 
Exchange Bank, and Butler his decoy-duck 1 Let their correspondence answer. 

On Wednesday (letter 19), Butler wrote to Hoyt — " Tel] all persons that the bank will not 
stop" — in other words, tell all persons to exchange their property for, and take payment for theii- 
sen'ices in, W. and W. notes, signed B. F. Butler. Next day (letter 20), " In the absence of 
all instrvxtions from Mr. Barker for a fortnight, I consider it my duty to continue paying. If 
I stop, I may as loell stop next vjeek as this." Here, we have a mere clerk, an automaton of a 
New York stock-jobber, decked out with the robes of a Bank President, and $500,000 of his 
promises to pay put afloat by his guilty colleague, among the farmers and traders, affirming 
on one day that his concern was solvent, and the ne.xt telling their confederate, Hoj-t, that he 
could only hold out for a week, and waited the New York stock-jobber's orders, w'hether he 
should shut shop, or go on paying in cents and sixpences, out of a $1400 fund. Boyd, he 
says, would have advanced him some money on a draft on Barker, but as Wing had brought 
him news that Barker was hard pressed, he would not draw on him. Did he warn the thou- 
sands who were exchanging property for Ms bilLs, that he might have to stop in a week ? 
Oh, no ! He had, in effect, stopped already. 

On the 25th of June, he wrote Hoyt that, unless compelled, he would not stop till Barker 
directed him to do so. On the 26th (letter 23), he sent his own note to Baird, by Hoyt, for a 
loan of $4,000, for the bank, secm-ed by 26 other notes, bank propertv, value over $10,000 — 
adding, " You may rely upon it that the bank CAN AND WILL continue its redemptions." 
Compare this assertion with his funds, the bank debts, and his statements on the two previous 
days. Could deception go farther I How did he find out, on Thursday, that it was disixon- 



40 VAN buren's pupil, a true chip of the old block. 

Jackson, in those measures of madness and mischief, during the wars about 
the national treasure and currency, which ended m a pubhc bankruptcy, by 
which 500 millions of dollars of debt were blotted out with the sponge ot the 
statute, and wide spread ruin and misery entailed on many thousands of our 
most thrifty, frugal, and trustworthy citizens. 



CHAPTER XII. 



The love of money is the root of all evil ; which whUe some coveted after, they have erred 

from the faith.— 1 Timothy, vi. 10. 

Got Wright endorses his old comrade at Sandy BilPs Candor and Integrity !— 
'^Ask my brother ij I be a thief.''— Value of Faper Enactments against But- 
lerizers.— O' Sullivan in the Review tries to whitewash Butler —Barker's 
Exchange Bank, and other humbugs.— He, Van Buren, and Butler strong for a 
National Bank.— Van Buren lectures Folks in the West about Bank Corrup- 
tions .'—Butler's Bank goes down, and he goes off to Albany and re-joins his old 
partner. 
In Senate, February, 4, 1834, General Jackson had sent a message, with B. 

F. Butler's report, as attorney-general, for the removal of the agency for paymg 

^i^to deceive Boyd; and on Saturday, that he might safely deceive, not Baird only, -but 
all to whom that gentleman might exhibit his letter ■? . ^ „ rr^i. , i i, . * „j 

On the 28th of June, Barker writes in the N. Y. Evening Post, "The bank has not stopped 
payment-it will not stop payment-which please promulgate." On the 30th, Hoyt published 
Sart of a letter full of fa sehood, in the Albany papers. On the 3d ot July Butler wrote to 
Efm " Yoiu- extract was well timed." Turn to No. 25, page 159, for Butler's stateinent thus 
circulated After puffing himself, he says, " When there were more cads than he could satisfy 
^vdth his own hands, he called in hi- neighbors to a.ssist him in paying, and when there were 
more than all could attend to, he requested those persons that came with the bills, to lay them 
diwn, and take as many dollars in specie as they left in bills'-in other words to help them- 
selves " SeU all the gdods vou can for these notes," says Mr. Butler, through the press, and 
this after full consultation with his confederate in this traudulent, clieating conccrii. At the 
same thne he was threatening those who sent up a lew dollars refusing his own notes m 
payment of a debt due the bank, and only paying a few hundred dollars a day to transient 
favo^rtes, and none at all to bankers or brokers, though " there were thousands of men and o. 

''''&TsSr'ti Hoyt! to ny to get from Mr. Van Rensselaer, the young Patroon, a fa^-orablc 
acSunt of his bank " though he did not pay him," is a master-piece of knavery. He kept 
drinking intoxicating liquors with the patroon, roR two or threk hours before the bank 
r LosED behiad his bank counter, and iu sight of his customers, and got him in this way to 
lake back to Albany nearly S500 of his W. and W. notes, for which I dare say he never after- 
wards ?ot 40 cents "to the dollar. , .^ .. 

I paid the " poor and needy" in his presence, says Butler-and if we get his opinion prais- 
in- our bank " I dare sa v it will pass current, and be a legal tender in your Dutch metropoh.s 
a"rd it would answer for circulation, cV:c." if Butler taught at ^he^ruin-shop in in lancy and 
bv his tutor and ixutncr, Van Burcii, in youth, was thus accomplisaed in knaveiy in 1»1J, at 
Si years ot age, what m'ust be his pioliciency in 1840, in his 51st winter, as district attorney 
ol {he United Sates for the commercial metropolis of America 11 at 24, he could cover 
with the mantle of hypocrisy, and a pretended zeal for "a faithtnl and respectab e minister, 
•Restated preaching of the gospel" at Sandy Hill, and the cry ol " How can those escape 
who neglect so great salvatimi !"-the avarice that usually besets men in old age, aie not that 
rmme?cial public to be pitied, who have to do with the attorney who, when huu Ung down 
the merchants of xNew York, in 1H38 lo 1841, made the fortunes ot marshals, clerk., nayal- 
officTrs, surveyors, collectors, and district attorneys ^ It would almost seem as it Price and he 
had understood each other in 1837-8. , ., , i ■ i .. 

Mr. Butler's party paper here, the Morning. News, having complained that his letters aie 
garbled I ofler as a si.eciinen ol the omissions, to supply the blanks in letter, No. 16, page 
I5t], to Barker. Alter " Dear Sir, * * * * *" read - lliave written you very trequenlly lor 
•he four days past but knowing thai you will liave a desire to hear Irom me as often as iwssi- 



WRIGHT UPON BUTLER. BUTLER AND THE BANK. 41 

pensions to revolutionary officers from the United wStates Bank. Mr. Clay 
remarked that he had no confidence in Butler's opinions while he remained 
within the pestilential atmosphere of Washington, as Jackson would dismiss the 
officer who might (like Duane) dare to ditier from him. Mr. Silas Wright 
(though at Sandy Hill during part of Butler's fraudulent hanking movements 
there, and aware of his efforts to deceive the public in the Washington and 
Warren Bank concern) replied, that Butler " was not to be affected by any such 
influence, for he was a man of INTEGRITY, truth, and candor, [III] and 
would not give an opinion which he did not in HIS conscience believe to be 
right." 

if his' conscience was as elastic as his correspondence mdicates, m 1819, what 
must it have become in 1834 '{ Should it be his tate, hereatter, to miss a high 
place in the sanctuary above, old Beelzebub might very safely install him as 
principal sub-treasurer below. The ex-president of the Washington and Warren 
Bank will assuredly hold on to the dollars. In view of his management in 1819, 
a clever writer in the Tribune " asks the question, not to wound the feelings of 
the descendants of a lapsed apostle, whether it is probable, had Mr. Butler 
been one of the Twelve, Judas would have gotten that money 1" 

It appears that he expected a small sum in specie, perhaps 1,000 to 4,000 
dollars — 60 to 240lbs — and we find him trying to deceive one of the carriers, 
that others might be deceived through him. " He [BakerJ and every body 
else thinks I have tons of it (specie) on the way," and if he will not stay for 
it, " tell him there will not be a load until next week." President Polk has 
been long and well aware of this deception ; so have his cabinet. Butler 
remains in office ; and is it too much for me to ask the public whether, when in 
the face of these facts and his extortions as district attorney, exhibited in the 
report of the commissioners appointed by the late President, he holds on with- 
out a syllable of complaint from Press or President, such conduct is approved 
in the highest quarters, and Butler held forth as a pattern for less favored 
incumbents in office 1 As to penal laws, against such as him, they are altogether 
visionary. Hoyt's and M'Nulty's, and similar cases, in point, show that, with 
one essential difference — they loere removed. 

On the first of July, Butler issued an official statement to the public, through 
the Sandij Hill Times, in which he very solemnl}' avowed his knowledge of the 
fact, as presiding officer, that " THE BANK IS ABLE TO PAY all its debts 
[quoting scripture] ' to the uttermost farthing.' The debts due to the bank 
amount to more than double their notes in circulation, and their debts ARE 
PERFECTLY SECURE."* 



ble dnrin^ my present circumstances, I seize every method of conveyance to give you the 
earliest information of my concerns." Instead of the second * * * * * read, " The remittance 
of .'^2,000 in current bills' by Capt. Wiswall, on Saturday afternoon, took all the notes of that 
description Avhich were then on hand. I have received dm-ing the two days past about Sl^O 
in current bills— of that sum I send by one messenger S90d— and bv another S350, to Mr. 
Hoyt, to be converted into specie — and"! have, since the arrival of Mr. iGJilchrist with the notes 
from the Mechanics and Farmers' Bank, dii'eeted him to exchange them into the notes of that 
bank, and to make them advance the specie. If that cannot be done, and the specie cannot 
be had at Albany, then the bills will be presented at the Troy banks, who will be compelled to 
pay^the greater part of them." The words left out where I place the third *****, are 
" What Mr. Gilchrist will do I am unable to say. I presume, however, he \vill return with 
the stage to-day." The sense of the remainder is not changed by these omissions, which are 
made to shorten the pamphlet. 

* Though dating his '• budget," as he calls it, from the counter of a di.shonestly chartered 
bank', used by a New York stockjobber, to avoid speedy payments, Butler had the assurance 
to talk of " speculators and bank agents," "greedy speculators, and arrogant monied aristo- 
cracies," In alter life he played the same game "in a larger theatre, slandering and rifling 



42 BUTLER PUSTANCIERING UP AT SANDY HILL. 

On the 19th of November he complains, that no poor wight had ever received 
" more of public censure and abuse " than himself. " The credit of the paper 
is very low," and my character is so depreciated at Albany, according to report, 
that but few of my old acquaintances would acknowledge or receive me." 
(p. 162.) How could it be otherwise 1 Had he not labored unweariedly to 
cheat the community, or to allow his confederates to do so 1 If there was 
double the value of the bills afloat in secure, solvent debts, who stole these 
obligations, so that the bills went down to 50 and 30 cents 1 If the bank had 
ample means, who plundered it of those means '? If the politic, pious, disin- 
terested financier, Butler, advised all who valued his word, in June and July, 
to take the bills at par, and assured them on his honor, that they would be paid, 
and that the bank was good and would stand, what explanation did he give 
when all but a few favorites found themselves cheated and plundered 1 His 
letters, Nos. 34, 35, 50, and still more especially No. 31, are a queer mixture 
of religion, law, and banking. As his language was in keeping with this pious 
exterior, many must have been deceived.* 

the U. S. Bank, while " the party" were creating Washington and Warren banks by the 
hundred, humbly to imitate his too successful example. 

In Van Buren's address to the Democratic State Convention of Indiana, he tells the Hoo- 
siei-s that "the manufacture of paper inoney has been attempted in every form; it has been 
tried by individuals, been transferred to corporations by the States, then to corporations by 
Congress, engaged in by the States themselves, and has signally failed in all. It has in 
general proved not the handmaid of honest industry and well regulated enterprise, but the 
pampered menial of speculation, idleness, and fraud. It has corrupted men of the highest 
standing; almost destroyed the confidence of mankind in each other; and darkened our 
criminal calendar with names that might otherwise have conferred honor and benefit on the 
country. There is strong ground for believing that such a system must have some innate, 
incurable defect, of which no legislation can divest it, and against which no human wisdom 
can guard, or human integrity sustain itself." Could he not have gone farther, and added, 
that he and his friends Butler, Marcy, Throop, &c., had done more in the way of this manu- 
facture, corruption, and destruction of confidence, than anv other body of politicians in the 
Union 1 

On the 7th of July, Butler wrote Hoyt that he had paid, since the run commenced, over 
S9,000 — say $325 per day — that he had more cash now than at first, '■ but shall now hold up" 
— "ought not the public to wait a while"? We have crowed full enough." Again, on the 
10th, " I will rather sufler the public to fret a little than hazard the salety of tfw inslitidion by 
paying out too fast." Schuyler owed a note — Butler would not take W. and W. bills ia pay- 
ment — not he. " He will be sued," said Butler (page 1(31); and when paying his debts he 
selected bills of an indifferent reputation (page 154), " he had no money but what wad toe 
good for tiiem." On July 14, Butler Avas " satisfying all fair and proper calls," and abusing 
Clinton as being " raving mad, beside being a fool." August 24, he was " paying daily, in a 
slow way." Other banks had got his bank notes, and were about to circulate them in quan- 
tities, when Hoyt was set on with a series of chancery injunctions, but Chancellor Kent thwarted 
him, and refused to enjoin the banks not to circulate. In February, 1820, Barker advised 
him that the W. and W. could no longer afibrd to pay his salary, aiid B. F. Butler rejoined 
his ancient colleague in the law. Van Buren ; being, " with the assistance of Providence, 
fully resolved never again to abandon his profession." He left the bank June 15, 1820, and 
on the i'Jth the firm of Van Buren & Butler was ready to do " anybody's dirty work," with 
Lorenzo Hoyt for a student, and Jesse, his brother, as tneir Wall street correspondent. In a 
very few years after, Butler was Attorney-General of the Republic, and his partner filled the 
chair of Wa.shington. 

* In a card issued through the Evening Post, February, 1825, Barker .said that $200,000 of 
its stock had been received from the debtors oi the bank. Why was this done, when it was 
well known that the .stock was worthless ? Who besides Barker had S200,000 to pay in 1 
Was it in this way that the securities for double its bills in circulation wenll If so, what 
could be a baser cheats Slock was no payment of debts due the bank till its obligations to 
the public were met, and after that, only at its cash value in the market. 

1 noticed the Washington and Warren Bank, in a publication issued in 1843, on which 
Barker wrote me, from New Orleans, an explanatory letter, as follows: 

" As to the Blink of Wasliington and Warren, yon, In efTect, charge Mr. Van Buren, Mr. Butler, and my- 
self, with corrupting tlie Legislature of New Vork to procure the charter of that bank. Mr. Van Buren wa» 
not, la the whole course of his life, interested one dollar in the Bank of Washington and Warren ! As to It* 



BARKER AND THE WASHINGTON AND WARREN BANK. 43 



CHAPTER Xni. 

Should JuiSTicE call to battle, the applauding shout we'd raise; 

A million swords would leave their sheaths, a million baj'onets blaze, 

The stern resolve, the courage high, the mind untamed by ill, 

The fires that warmed our Leader's breast, his followers' bosoms fill. 

Oiu" Fathers bore the shock of war — their Soks can bear it still. 

Ode to Atk of July, 1813, by WiUiam Cullcn Bryant. 

Van Buren, Clintoriy Spencer, Jiladison, and the War of 1812. T/ie Caucus. — 
Bleecker and Hamilton. — VanBuren opposed to War. — He standi foremost in 
urging C'inton to take the field against Madison. — Injures Clinton and then 
deserts him. — Madison triumphs. — Van Bur en joins the victors and bears off 
the spoils. — The true Policy of this Union. — Great Reformation in the United 
Kingdom since 1819. — Vast increase of Popular Influence and Liberal Measures. 
' — Ilorace Walpole. — .Ambrose Spencer on Van Buren'^s crooked course in IS12. 
Clinton manly, able, honest. — Duane and Spencer gave him good counsel. 

Van Bqren's history exhibits an absolute disregard to principle, in every- 
thing that has relation to the choice of candidates for President and Vice Pre- 
sident of the United States, or to the mode of their election. On the 22d of 



incorporation, I was not a party to it, and knew nothing about the progress of the bill through the Legislature, 
never heard of it, further than what I read in the newspapers, and did not become interested therein till loiig 
after its incorporation, nor did Mr. Butler accept a situation in it until a year or more after I l)ecame interested. 
The bank was unfortunate, yet its deposits and circulation were paid in full. Have other failing hanks done 
this 1 There was not, to my knowledge or belief, any interference on the part of Mr. Van Buren or Mr. Butler 
with the Legislature, or any member, in procuring the act incorporating that bank. Mr. Van Buren may have 
been a member. How he voted I never knew — presume in the negative, as he, as well as ft!r. Butler and my- 
self, usually opposed the increase of those mnnied aristocracies, tho-e privileged orders. My character for 
Democracy is not to be questioned at this late day. Mo man sees or hears the name of Jacob Barker, who 
does not instantly associate therewith Democracy." 

The facts published in this volume are the best reply to such eiToneous statements as Bar- 
ker tried to palm upon the public. Van Buren's conduct in getting the charter 1 have stated 
from the Senate Journal ; and as to the payments to the bill-holders, Butler's letters will .shov/ 
that they had a very poor chance of getting them. Bills that are paid are not quoted at 23 to 
50 cents in the prices cun-ent; but, doubtless, when the secmities were so ample, much 
knavery was practised, which will only see the light when the recording angel shall be called 
on to endorse Butler's piety, or refuse a certificate. 

Butler was very saucy to the brokers — they could get .scarcely any pajinents from him — 
Hoyt published his letter in the Albany papeiv, calling them " leeches upon the body politic" — 
and the bankers were not much more fortunate. By way of retaliation (see Barker's paraph- 
let), a New York broker hawked about the streets a proposal to contract to deliver Butler's W, 
and W. notes at 80 cents to the dollar, within six months. Afterwards, the brokers offered to 
deliver them at 50 cents. In a few months they came down to 35 cents, and Barker's Ex- 
change Bank bills fell to 10 cents. 

Butler's fall-length picture, and an elaborate memoir, appeared in his friend O'Sullivan's 
Democraiic Review for January, 1839, in which the public are as.sured that " before he (But- 
ler) left the bank, by ^reat exertion and care, its credit was restored, and specie payments re- 
sumed." Far be it trom me to call this a lie, but it would puzzle Butler himself to find a 
more appropriate description. 

In Juue, 18:31, after the W. and W. Bank notes were bought in at 50 to 75 per cent, dis- 
count; th'.-n — but not till then — did this fraudrdent concern recommence again "cash pay- 
ments," which Mr. Barker or his instruments kept up for some years. The Exchange Bank 
was a dead failure, of which its owner got rid by taking the benefit of t'ne State insolvent 
law. 

In August, 1819, Mr. Jacob Barker issued a pamphlet, a bundle of which he sent to Butler, 
at Sandy Hill, for general circulation. One of these is now before me. It states that Barker 
began his Exchange 6ank, in New York, with a capital of ;5250,00J ; that it flourished till 
May, 1819 — that the average circulation of its notes was over half a million of dollars— that 
in that month he ceased to pay out Exchange no'es, substituting Washington and Warren 
(which occasioned the run on Butler, at Sandy Hill)— that fi'om August, 1818, to May, i:^l9, 
he had redeemed, at -par, $382,115 of W. and'W. bills, and that 1i£ corisic/ered the W. aitd W. 
Bank, " FROM THE KNOWLEDGE HE HAD OF ITS CONCERNS. AS GOOP AS 



44 VAN BUREN AND THE WAR OP 1812. 

May, 1812, James ]\Iadison was nominated by the members of Congress of the 
democratic party — the nomination had Jefferson's approbation. On the 29th of 
that month, and within seven days of the caucus choice of Madison, all the re- 
publicans in the Legislature of N. Y. except four, met at Albany, 95 members 
present — 87 voted to nominate a candidate, in opposition to Madison, and the 
Washington caucus, and De Witt Clinton was unanimously nominated. Gen. 
James W. Wilkin presided at this State caucus, and Van Buren approved and 
supported its choice. He had been for a caucus of Congressmen in ISOS — was 
acrainst it in 1812 — for it again in 1816, when Monroe was nominated — and its 
leader in 1824 in favor of Crawford. In 1.828 he denounced it as unconstitu- 
tional, and in 1832 supported the packed system of Baltimore conventions, in 
which the people have little influence, and the leaders are everything. In 
1824 he was for putting down public opinion when he thought it would go 
ao-ainst his nomijjee, Crawford — and he did prevent the people from electing 
electors of president. In 1828 he had obtained quite a new view, and spoke 
in favor of district elections, anJ since then the general ticket system has got 
his approbation. He hated and despised the poor foreigner in 1821 and 
1824. It got to be fashionable to speak respectfully of Irishmen when Gene- 
ral Jackson took the helm — and who had sooner learnt to admire themselves 
and their country in 1S29, more than the flatterer of power. Van Buren? 

Crawford was a leading member of the caucus which nominated Madison m 
1812, and R. M, Johnson was its secretary. Van Buren was then politically 
opposed to him in almost every sense, banking and currency included. Twelve 
years after [1824] he seems to have almost adored him. 

When Van Buren became President, he hastened to appoint Harmanus 
Bleecker, a lawyer of Albany, and former member of Congress, one of the most 
thorough-going opponents of Madison and the war, to be Minister to Holland 
When he joined Jackson's administration, he sent James A. Hamilton, Hoyt's 
correspondent, (pages 205 and 209,) who was so ready to endorse Swartwout's 
doctrine, that, although all the candidates were avowed and acknowledged 
republicans, yet the spoils principle must be adhered to, and office-holders 
turned out if they had supported any other candidate than the successful one. 
On this principle, Jonathan Thompson, the chairman or secretary of Old Tam- 
many in 1812, when that society was foremost in the war ranks, had to vacate 
the coUectorship of New York, to make room for Samuel Swartwout, Burr's 
old agent in the Mexican invasion, or dismemberment of the Union ; James A. 

ANY OTHER, IP NOT TUE BEST IN AMERICA." " Because I Jcnoio (he paper to be 
good," said Barker, " / recommend to every man ichose good opinion Jicisk to preserve, to take 
ike notes oftlie Washington and Warren Bank, and also the notfs of the Exchange Bank, for anf^ 
property he wishes to sell. " The notes of the W. and W., payable in N. Y., ■will, from this 
date, be punctually redeemed at this (Exclianj^c) Bank ; and the others will continue to be 
redeemed at the Bank at Sandy Hill." '• 1 confidently calculate that no man will approach 
the polls at the next spring election with a bill [of the Exchange Bankj in liis pocket which 
he cannot then convert into money, at par, if he chooses to do so." 

Time showed that all this was a deception, a fraud of the most reprehensible character, 
but it did not diminish the close intimacy tlien subsisting between Ployt, Butler, Barker, and 
Van Buren. 

Butler, Barker, and Van Buren, in tho.se days, were all National Bank men. Barker, in 
his pamphlet, page 18, expresses the opinion, "that, some day or other, the whole banking 
business of the country will be done by a national bank and private bankers ; the former will 
redeem its paper with spec/ie, and the latter with the notes of the national bank. If the pre- 
.sent Bank of the U. S. should be conducted with ability and prudence, it will be a very pro- 
fitable as well as useful establishment." If a specie currency cannot, or will not be rescrteii 
to, and if the promises to pay of the nation are not to be used as the circulating medium, 
Barker's idea is certainly infinitely preferable to 900 paper-issuing factories, beyond all other, 
control than that of a bankrupt law, and many of them beyond even lliat. 



VAN BUREN, CLINTON, AND THE ELECTION OP 1812. 45 

Hamilton took, for a time, the seat of Henry Clay at the head of the depart- 
ment of State, which he soon exchanged for the most lucrative office in the 
gift of the Government, north of the Delaware, that of U. S. District Attorney 
at i\ew York. He gave way in 1834 to Price, a bird of the same feather ; and 
B. F. Butler succeeded on the flight of Price. 

On the Sth of July, 1812, some prominent individuals belonging to the peace 
party m Hudson, Van Buren's residence, published an address, recommendino- 
a meeting of the party ' for the purpose of denouncing James Madison and the 
war^ Among other onnonents of the war, this address was signed by Ja!"*^* 
A. Hamdton, the warm personal friend of Van iJuren. ine nuason meetmg 
convened and resolved, ' That the war is impolitic, unnecessarv, and disastrou.s, 
and that to employ the mditia in an offensive war is unconstitutional.' 

I do not blame Van Buren ; because, being of opinion that nothin^^ was to be 
gained by war, in 1812, he supported Clinton, supposing that he wo^uld pursue 
such measures as would earlier ensure a lasting peace; but I blame him and 
his biographers for endeavoring to pursuade the public now, that he was a Jef- 
tersonian Democrat in 1S12, and friendly to the declaration of war, like Clay 
Duane, Calhoun, Grundy, and the other leading supporters of the administration 
ox that da}'. 

Van Buren, in a letter to E. M. Chamberlain and others, Goshen, Indiana, 
dated Oct. 3, 1840, thus speaks of De Witt Clinton, and 1812 :— 

"He had, for many years previous, and down to that period, been the leader 
ot the Democratic party, in New York. He was the private secretary of his 
uncle, George Clinton— was a member of the Legislature in 1797 and 1800 
and sustained the Democracy in the ' reign of terror ' against the 'Black Cock- 
ade party. He was chosen U. S. Senator in 1801 by the former, occupied 
by their choice, various public stations in New York; was in the State Senate 
tor several years before the war ; elected Lieutenant Governor by them in 1811, 
which office he still held in 1812 ; acted with his party to that period, in support 
of the measures of the General and State administrations, under Madison and 
lompkins; was to that period abused with unsparing bitterness by the Fede- 
ralists, and in return, he applied to them his well remembered description « of a 
party who would rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven ' " 

Van Buren adds, that he supported Clinton in November, 1S12, in preference 
to Madison as being an advocate of war measures ;— and that, « At the ensuino- 
session of the Legislature, which commenced in January, 1813, the poHtical 
relations previously existing between Mr. Clinton and myself were dissolved, 
and never again resumed." ' 

There were 16 States in 1812. New York, New Jersey, Delaware Mas- 
sachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticu't went for Clmton 
-89 votes. Madison got 104. Other 18 votes would have elected Clinton. 
Van iiuren doubtless considered that that great man had injured himself deeply 
with the people, for he left him next session, and went over to the party he had 
long opposed, became useful to them in the Senate, and professed to be a very 
s.ncere^^convert to the principles and measures of kessrs. Madison, Calhoun, 
Ua^, Grundy Root, Spencer, Duane, Jackson, Rutgers, and the other pro- 
minent advocates of armed resistance to European oppression and misrule. 

ills partner and parasite, Butler, in a letter to Hugh A. Garland, March, 1835 
tl rv\ t^e republicans of the legislature of 1811-12, who brought forward 
Mr. Clinton," had supported Jefferson and Madison " in all the great questions 
ot public policy connected with our foreign relations"— and that Van Buren 
rrl!f R\°^'!i ^T^^^ advocate of all the strong measures proposed against 
Great Britam during the session of Congress of 181 1-12, the war included " Be- 



46 FOREIGN POLICY OP ENGLAND. HER RECENT REFORMS. 

fore the election of 1840, Blair told us, in the Globe, the printing presses for which 
were bought and paid for by Van Buren's speculating friends in New York, 
(see Daniel Jackson's letter,) that Van Buren wrote the Senate's reply to Tonnp- 
kins' Messao-e of 1814. It says that " an administration selected for its xcisdom 
and its virtues will, in our opinion, prosecute the icar till our multiplied wrongs are 
avenijed, and our rights secured.'" If Van Buren, in 1811-12, was a decided ad- 
vocate of strong measures and of war, why did he denounce the caucus system 
of which he was so fond in ISOS and 1824, and which Butler revered when he 
supposed Andrew Jackson was to be put down by it ? Why did he denounce a 
caucus in 1812, join those who sought to put down this wise and virtuous 
administration, whose foreign policy Butler tells us he had approved of, and vote 
with the Hartford Convention men, and the federal States of Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, and Connecticut, for Clinton 1 No one will argue that Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut supported Clinton as the war candidate. If he was 
such, where is the proof of it '{ 

That VV. C. Bryant,* Dr. Channing, Daniel Webster, and hundreds of emi- 

* It is njiderstood to have been the policy of France before the capitulation of auebec, to 
unite with the Indians, and surround the English settlements in North America, by a rear 
communication of military forts, judiciously placed between her colony of Louisiana and the 
dwellers on the banks of the St. Lawrence. Some such scheme is now imputed to Britain 
with a view to coerce the United States— and Bonnefoux, in a well written pamphlet, evi- 
dently credits it. He says that the Ashburton treaty, which was certainly a very hard bargain 
to these States enables England to assume a trulv formidable attitude on the northern and 
northwestern iVontitrs of the Union— to stir up the hostile Indian tribes, chiefly Avest of the 
Mis-sissippi- and that if Texas was not annexed, England would control the Gull at ^Mexico, 
scatter her emissaries among the Indians all the way up to Michigan, and encircle this repub- 
lic with enemies, savage and civilized, who would rise to our injmy at her bidding. 

If Republican Ajcerica remain true to her original design— if liberty, based on intelligence, 
iustice and industry well rewarded, continue to be substantially enjoyed by her people, no 
efforts of England, or of England and France combined, can permanently retard her progi-ess 
—no railroads, northern colonies, western Indians, or hireling mercenaries, would avail much 
for conque.st France is a compact country, surrounded by absolute monarchies, anu by 
Holland England, and S^vitzerland- but was she not stronger against combiuea Europe 
when battling for liberty under the flas: of free institutions, and conlmcd willim her natural 
limits than when her frontiers included Italv, Holland, and a great part of Germany and 
Spain' under the despotism of Napoleon 1 In her struggles for good government, the generous 
and the just the bold and the brave, evervwhere asked Heaven to bless her— in her wars lor 
annexation or conquest she became weak, and when 1 hrst travelled over her '•vine-covered 
fields and gay valleys," she was a captive, her strongholds garrisoned by Englishmen, Kus- 
sians Prussians, arid Austrians. and the imbecile Bouri)ons and old noblesse bore rule as the 
vicecr'erents of Metternich, Alexander, and the baron Castlercagh. In my opinion, respectf uU y 
offered as rev-i.sed and corrected by av hat I have seen here, the Union runs more risdv through 
the exertions of the party in power to extend and perpetuate slavery; inflict on us the evils ol 
an unsound currencv ; keep millions of tlie people degraded and ignorant ; stir up such scenes 
as were witnessed iri Philadelphia in 1811, through nativeism and religious liatreds; borrow 
lar^c sums from foreign nations, spend the money in a profligate manner under i he sanction 
of sovereign States, and then virtually repudiate the debts; and omit to enforce equal laws and 
a pare administration of justice. . . , j .- ^^■„ ,i .ut 

VVhen we see great nation like Britain, struggling under the heavie.=;t load of public debt 
that ever was borne by any people, and yet accomplishing, in an age, many of the most gigan- 
tic reforms and improvemenUi on which this republic prides itsell-whcn we see the mind o 
the people equal to the task of so far subduing au aristocracy, at least as united powcrlul.ana 
splendid, as thai whicii issued from the castles and mansions of Fiance into exile and poverty, 
fifty years since, as to ensure to the millions the prospect of a free trade with all nations in 
grain and provisions, while we lay heavy taxes on foreign produce-at such a time as this 1 
would as unwillingly go to battle with the powerful Briton as with the feeble Mexican 1 he 
day was when free America rejoiced at every triumph of freedom on the old sod. A\ Hi it 

'^^SincrisW'lJritain'has destroyed her rotten borough repre.sentation iti the three kingdoms, 
and given Alknchester, Birmingham, Leeds, ShelKeld, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee, Green- 
ocK.and other populous communities a voice in her Parliament. Sue has put do\\n me 



GREAT REFORMATION IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND SCOTLAND. 47 

nent, learned, and faithful men, of high talents and much experience, were then 
of opinion that a war would not force England to abandon her impressment of 
American seamen and other bad practices, that a continuance of peace would 
streno-then America, prevent immense losses to her commerce then afloat, extin- 
guish instead of greatly increasing her public debt and otiier burthens, avoid 
much ill-will, and save the lives of many thousands of innocent human creatures, 
is probable enough: but when the war was raging, the national policy decided 
on, and Madison the candidate of the majority, the democracy, the party who 
were for war, why did Van Buren then urge Clinton ojn to a contest against 
that majority, whose conduct, he says, in IS 14, he had ever approved, and endea- 

usurped borough governments which obtained in her toxvns and cities ; given the towns im- 
proved municipal charters, with the power of electing their mayors, aldermen, &c., and im- 
proving the condition of and educating the masses. She has broken down in Ireland the close 
borough system, in so much that the proscription and favoritism of old times are at an end, 
and Daniel O'Connell, a Roman Catholic, has been Ma)^or of Dublin. She has reduced the 
sev'en cent stamp duty on newspapers to two cents, mail postage included — and has led the 
way to a reduction of letter postage, charging only two cents for a letter, any distance, charged 
by us yet b to 10, and for which she formerly exacted 10 cents to half a crown, while we 
demanded 6 cents to 50. She has neither broken down the Bank of England nor a paper ciu:- 
rency, but she has changed an irredeemable paper circulating medium into gold and silver for 
all sums under $25, and her $2b and higher denominations of bank notes are redeemable 
always in gold at the Bank of England, which is under an efficient supervision, including real 
publicity, and no safety fund political machinery to mar its usefiUness. 

Britain, too, since 1819, has emancipated both protestants and catholics, the latter from 
many grievous disabilities, which had previousl}' made them a discontented, persecuted peo- 
ple ; and the former, when dissenters from the Protestant Episcopal Church, by removing the 
test acts and oppressions which kept Presbjlerians, Cluakcrs, Independents, Methodists, 
in many cases, out of places of power and trust ; has endowed many schools in Ireland, and 
some in England ; encouraged mechanics' institutes, and the spread of scientific knowledge ; 
and lessened the disabilities under which the Jews sufiered. She has made many and 
valuable reforms in her colonies ; given the Canadians the local administration of their town- 
ship and county afiairs, lent them large sums of money, given them munificent grants for 
canals and raihoads, lent them millions and endorsed the loans, and done much to encourage 
their commerce, and free it from ancient shackles. While we are doing our very best to in- 
crease the numbers of wretched, hopeless victims who pine in slavery, and cursing new 
regions of God's earth with that horrid scourge, Britain has paid nearly foiu- hundred millions 
of dollars to blot out African bondage from the face of the earth ; she has greatly improved 
her jury and libel laws, she has humanized her penal code, she has done more than we within 
the last thirty years to make the civil code clear, distinct, and suitable to the condition of 
society and her institutions. The cruel restrictions on a free press which banished many 
and imprisoned more, are chiefly repealed ; the navigation laws reduced into one act ; excel- 
lent amendments made in many of her courts of justice, as to their procedure ; her st.\mp 
duties lessened ; and while salt, soap, tea, sugar, coffee, and a thousand other tilings of more 
or less utility, are either freed from taxation, or the tax on them lessened at least fifty millions 
a year, a direct tax of tw-elve cents per pound is laid on the incomes of all men worth over S"00 
a year, whether from bairk stock or broad acres, but persons under S'TOO a year income pay 
none of it. Not long since she took three millions of dollars, yearly duty, off American cot- 
ton ; and she prohibits the growth of tobacco in the United Kingdom, giving us the virtual 
monopoly of supplying her. Under the proposed system of trade, Buffalo and Lockport will 
soon have as deep an interest in peace with England as Charleston now has. These, and 
many other changes for the better, including the breaking up of the monopoly of the East 
India company to supply teas, and trade between India and the United Kingdom, the reduction 
of the tythe system, especially in Ireland, and the expenditure of many millions on railroads, 
tm-npikes, canals, bridges, and an infinite number of other useful works, are only a part of the 
recent reforms. Much has yet to be done — much is accomplished here which the vast debt 
of England, and the faithful payment of its interest, prevent her from attempting. But who 
is there that would rush into war to-morrow, with such a people, in order that slaves may be 
worked harder in Texas, their owners, or the dealers in them enriched, and Canada brought 
under the iron yoke of the slave States of this Union 1 My past life is the evidence of my 
sincerity in the cause of human emancipation, but I cannot, and will not subscribe to Ihs 
doctrines of John C. Calhoim and James K. Polk ; and my judgment is, that they two 
— the North Carolinian in the Presidential chair, and the South Carolinian, whose talents and 
experience might long since have enabled him to claim it— desire to pursue in the main, 
one Dolicy and that not favorable to human freedom. 



48 VAN BUREN's conduct last war. WALPOLE on AMERICA. 

vor by federal aid to break down the government at the very moment when 
unity was most required ? 

In the address of the Republican members of the Legislature of N. Y. to 
the electors, dated April 19th, 1815, and signed by Erastus Root, Samuel Young, 
M. Van Buren, Peter Allen, Moses I. Cantine, Aaron Hackley, Peter Slagg, 
John Wells, W. C. Bouck, and others, it is asserted, that " driven to the very verge 
of sufferance, our government was compelled to choose between manly resist- 
ance and abject submission — between open, determined hostility, and national 
debasement and degradation. The former alternative was adopted ; and on the 
18th of June, 1812, a day which will form a proud epoch in the annals of our 
country, war was deciarea agamst Great Britam." When our government took 
this manly course on a uay wnicn Mr. Van iDuren aeciares lo oe a proud cpcclx 
in the nation's annals, why was he found among the enemies of that government, 
the head of which had been nominated for re-election, by a caucus majority in 
Congress, a mode approved by him and Butler in 1S24, even when adopted by 
only a small minority in Congress to put down Clay, Jackson, and Adams % Why 
did he oppose Wheaton, Root, Croiius, Sanford, Rutgers, and Old Tammany, in 
November, 1812 ? There is but one answer — to break down the government 
of the day. Was there in N. Y. one enemy to the war, in Nov., 1812, who did 
not take sides with Coleman, Southwick, and Martin Van Buren X 

Van Buren urged Clinton to take the worst step, so great, so truly noble and 
useful a man could have taken in Nov., 1812 — and, when Clinton failed, he 
basely deserted him whom he had betrayed, and hastened to give in his allegi- 
ance to, and make himself strong upon, the winning side ; puffing the administra- 
tion he had striven to ruin, and lauding it, in 1814, for the very measures on 
account of which he had endeavored to strangle it in 1812.* Clinton failed in 



It is a gi'eat error to suppose that the aristocracy of Europe are our enemies. How many in 
France sacrificed everything to liberty ! Did not the French nobility cheer on Dr. Frankhn 
in his exertions, and tUd not Lord Chatham, and the English liberals encourage the Colonists 
to resist George III., Lord North, and the Parliament of that day 1 Hearken to Horace Wal- 
pole, the Whig Earl of Orford, as he expres-ses his feelings to his friend Sir Horace Mann, 
the British envoy at Florence : " Paris, Sept. 7, 1775. 

" I am what I always was, a zealot for liberty in every part of the globe, and consequently 
most heartily wish success to the Americans. They have liitlierto not made one blunder, and 
the administration have made a thousand, besides the two capital ones, of first provoking, and 
then uniting the Colonies. The latter seem to have as good heads as hearts, and we want both. 
Instead of being mortified, as I generally am when my country is defeated, I am comforted 
by finding, that, though one of very few in England, the sentiments of the re.st of the world 
concur with and coniirm mine. The people with us are fascinated; and what must we be, 
when Frenchmen are shocked at otir despotic acts 1 Indeed, both this nation and their king 
seem to embrace the most generous principles — the only fashion, I doubt, in which we shall 
not imitate them. Too late our eyes will open." 

The recent speeches of O'Connell .show that England may depend on Ireland in case of a 
war by us to sustain an extension of slavery. Can we of America depend on France, as of 
old, to" engage in such a cause '\ Wc ought not lo expect ii. Tsor ought any of our people 
to be deceived with the cry that England and France are worn out, superannuated military 
despotisms. The people there arc ju.si as young, and as wide awake to their rights as our 
favorite States of Florida and Texas, and, if I mistake not, a gi-eat deal more so. 

" Cliiff Justice SpincLT, the l)rotlii;r-in-la\v of Clinton, itnd who fupporleil Mailison and Ihc atlminiiJirntion In 
1812, wliL-n Van biirrm wuh dolnn in..ri; than any other man in the Siatu to cnibanass \.\w war .Tn^l iis supporters, 
wrote a k-itir tn the JVtu? H'orld, in Augiisi, \H'i, censuring Jabiz I), liaminond (or playing the sycophant No 
lie said) to V.m Uuren. Uanaiiond had been In the conlidi-iici- of Clinton and opposi-d to Van Buren and his Al- 
bany clique ; but he whi'eled louiid in 1831, ihe pi;t bank yi-ai. u'oi the jud^eshiji of a couiiiy court, and pufled 
Van Buren'.- war service.":, in his bonk and in letters lo the npw.spapers, piobably a? a prtiielul eijuivali nt. 

Judge Spencer's reniarkri on Hamniond's account of Van Bun-n's conduct in November, 161ii, aie so sensible 
and lo ih - point, tiiat the reader will be pleased wiih thi ni. 

•• Mr. Van Buren fsavs HaniinondJ on his arrival at Albany found Mr. Cliiitnn entirely dostirulc of .nny plan of 
operation. The talents. aUUrcsi and activily of Air. Van Bnren snon pkued hint ai the head of ihe K publican 
friends of Mr. (Jlinlon i i the S. nato ai.il, ni laei, in the Legislature." The result was that Republican eleciors 
Were noniinnied in the gcnati , and Fi'deral il.eior^ in the Asst-mbly, and upon joint ballot, tlie Chntonian ticket 
received 74 voleii, the Federal ticket '15, and 28 blank votes were cast, ami Air. naniuiond says, " Of course Ihe 
Federalists, ao of lliem, voted the Clmfniian ticket." The iiuestlyn is, who eflected tlie ariani-etueiit by which 



AMBROSE SPEWCEr'S VIEW OF VAN BUREN's CONDUCT LAST WAR. 49 

Nov., that yea'-, and Van Buren tells us in 1840, that in the session of January, 
1813, the political ties that had existed between them were dissolved and never 
resumed. 

26 Federalists abandoned the support of their own political friends, and whom they had openJy nominated to give 
their secret ballouti) their political opponents, thus euablmg them to triumph ■? ,, rr j 

Jt v.-as not Sir. Clinlun, for Van Bunn found him entitely destitute of »fiy plan of operations. Mr. Hammond 
unfrniv'!' points out the man who intrigued with the Federalisls, who drove and consuininated the barg-in. It 
was Mr' Van Buren who, bv his talents, address and activity, diii this, .'Uid thus '• placed himself at ihf head ol 
the/Hepuhlican friends of Mr. Clinton in S nate and, in fact, in the Legislature." But, according to Mr Ham- 
m'Tfid's political morals, this was all nijlit : and it setms never to have occurred to this smplf-mmdcd man th.il 
such political bargains are based on a quid pio quo ; that such astute Federalists a« Mr. Van Buren h id to deal 
with, would never give up their own electors whom they had the power of choosing, without some equivalent 
and what it was, was uiifoldud at the ne.\t nueiing of the same Lcgisl^iure, In the election of Mr. Rufus Kinjj to 
the Senate of tile United States, bv the desertion of a sutficieiit number of Republican membeia to defea: Gen- 
eral Wilkin's election, whom the Republican party had tlie power to elect. There may have btcn ottier condi- 
tions and stipulations either unfiiltilled or txnrevenled. 

" Mr. Van Buren must have perceived th.-it Mr. Clinton could not be elected President without the aid of the 
entire Federal party, and that wi;h sucli aid his prospects were slender. He must have lieen aware thai the ac- 
ceptance of that aid v.ould i uin him in the estimation of the areat republican par(y of tiie Union. After tlie nom- 
ination of iMr. Madison in the accustomed mmner by the Republican members of Conitre?s, and after the declara- 
tion of war, I then thouaht and siill think, these events had absolved every friend of Mr. Clinton, even those who 
had nominated him, from all obligation to support him for the Presidency. 

"The occurrence of a war with a mighty nation liad not been anticipated with certainty when Mr. Clinton was 
nominated. The declaration of war met the hearty assent of the Republican party. Did it escape Mr. Van Bu- 
ren's quick pi rception and rapid combination of idejs, that f.n opposition to Mr. Madison's election and hia defeat 
would have been a virtual condemnation of the war, declared by his advice and under his auspices ■? Did it not 
occur to Mr. Van Buren that our public enemy would regard the defeat of Mr. Madison as an expression of pub- 
lic opinion against the war 1 Was it not notorious that the Federal party almost universally were opoosexi to the 
war ? Under these circumstances a coalition with any portion of the Ffd'ral paity to defeat Mr. Madison and 
elect Mr. Clinton, if successful, would have been desiriictive of that unity of opinion which pfrv«ded the Repub- 
lican party, and would have afforded to the enemy incontestible proof of a fatal disunion ol o|.iinion, as regarded 
the energetic prosecution of the war on our part, which must have been humiliating and injurious. Is it true 
That Mr. Van Buren's conduct on the Presidential question was in accordance with the views of ihe Republican 
party of the state 7 It Is a notorious fact, that immediately after the Presidential contest ceased, Mr. Clinton, 
rapidly declined in the estimation of the Republicans of the state, and in 1815 was removed by a Republ.can coun- 
cil from the mayoralty of New York, the only otlice he then held. • • • • Ii never has been insinuated or 
asserted that Mr. Clinton personally took any agency in procuring his election, or entered into any bargains or 
compromises, or did .any act inconsistent with his honor. He merely suflered his name to be used. But, accord- 
ing to Mr. Ilamnioml, Mr. Van Buren was the master-spirit. That Mr. Clinton was an amhitious man, is not to 
be doubted; but it was of a high order, and its objects were pursued by no ignoble means. He loved that popu- 
larity which followed his deeds, not that which is run after. He wiisno demagogue, and wrsutteily nntitted, by 
a nobility of soul, for such sclf-piostitution. If Mr. Van Buren had been imbued with those piinciples of demo- 
cracy, and that lofty patriotism to which ho makes pretensions and for which his adherents gave him credit, 
would he not, especially after the declaration of war, have admonished Mr. Clinton of the many weighty con- 
siderations as regarded the public good and his own fame, which forbade a contest for the I'lesidency, between 
two Republi an candidates. * * * * Events proved that my motives were pure and honorable ; .-md it has 
been a source of great satisfaction to me, that Mr. Clinton lived to be convinced of it. The lliought will natitrally 
suggest itself to every mind— how comes it that I. nearly allied to Mr. Clinton, and much more interested in his 
elevation to the Presidency, si far as feelings are concerned, than Mr Van Buren, should have taken the visw 
1 did of the course which his own fame and paiiiotism required of him ; raid that Mr. Van Bare . with equal 
means of fonning a correct opinion, should have come konettiy to an adversi; conclusion. 1 consider, and always 
have considered, Mr. Van Buren's conduct on that memorable occasion, as tlic greatest political ciTor ot his life; 
and, I make no doubt, he so considers it himself: his friends have in vain attempted to justify or palliars bis 
conduct, and any man who can do so effectually, wouhl be welcome to him." 

This is all true, and yet we lind Van Buren held forth, September 6, 1836, in the Albany Argus, as being " the 
man who patiiotically yielded the state prid; of supporiing a citizen of New York tor the I'residency, in 1813, 

THE MOMENT IT BKCA.MK APPARENT THAT THE SfPPORT OF Mr. CunTON INVl^LVJED OPPOSITION TO THE 1 OHN- 

TP.Y, m supporting the war. * * * -j'lie man to whom, it may almost be saiil, the natl.n owes it, th.ii in 
the nearly equal struggle between the contending parties in 1813 and 1814, New York was found on the side of 
Madison and tlie country, instead of being seated with her delegates in the secrst conclave of the Hanford Con- 
vention."' 

With many such, vehicles of • falsehooil as the Argus, w^hM to lie boldly, artfully, and to the advantigeof 
their employers, paid by them, circulated widely among the pe 'ple, the better to deceive hem, wno cm w n'e. 
at Van Buren's election in 1836 1 1 rejoiced to see the patrioiic hero, fer uuch 1 believed hni, iriump-. ov' r ihe 
enemies of his country, as described by my old friend Croswell, to whose statement ol facs I g ive im lici. credit. 

Col. Duane was far more friendly to Clinton than to Madison, but as the nation was on the eve of a war, he 
went, like .\inbrose Spencer, for unanimity. In March, JSI2, he said, in the .\urora, ''lie Witt Clinton will 
not suit the powers that be. lie has an opinion of his own. The circumstance of the employment of delegated 
power for the purpwse of depressing men who are, on arcount of their great talents, or public services, distin- 
guished in the public view, is a horrible feature in republican government; after sustaining a press in N 
York, after making the deposits of the public treasury subservient to the use of a newspaper, cnipioyed ;;; 
' writing down the Clintons ' — it is probable, therefore, that the whole intiuence of the governinent will be 
directed to prevent the nomination of De Witt Clinton, and this system, which holds such men as John Arm- 
stiong and De Witt Clinton up for proscription, is perfectly consistent with the employment of men without 
any sort of fitness for public duties." 

In 1816, Duane named Clinton as the true democratic candidate for President, but he would not oppose hi' 
friend'.ol. Monroe. The Albany Arffas, by Judge Buel (Feb. 27), "thoughi the chances ralhr pre(ioi.deiatinj 
in favor of Mr. Crawford — a seiecli<'n which it believed would be cordially acquiesced m l>y tne leimhlic-in- oi 
NewYoik.'' Alegislitive caucus in February, 1810, ai Albany, instructed tne dehgation from New York in 
Congress, to vote for Tompkins, but as this would have rendi red M nroe's success certain, Van Bur n and sev- 
eral others only professed to approve of it. It was not, (like the Albany tariff instructions, ordbred from Wash- 
iiigtouin 1828,) lo be acted on. 



50 A NOBLE INSTANCE OF AMKRICAN GRATITUDE. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Like some tall cliff that, lifts its awful form^ 
Swells fiom the Vale, and mid-way leaves the storm; 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head. — Goldsmith. 

Clinton ejected from the Canal Board. — Elected Governor by acclamation.— 
Christopher Colks.— Canal Act of I SU.— The Tammany Bucktails.—Cun- 
ninqham's Warning.— hstice trampled on for the sake of the spoils --Peter 
Alltn— Young and Van Buren's Scriptural Majoriiy.— Who expelled Clm- 
lon?—Col. Young and the Canals.— Van Bur en Self Condemned.— Bis per- 
ecution of Clinton. 

Thf bold and wise determination with which, from IS 10 to 1828, De Witt 
Clinton linked his fortune and character with the success ot the great canals of 
this State,* and the vindictive opposition with which he was met at every point 
bv Martin Van Buren, and his followers and dependants, are matters of history. 
In 1824 while President of the Board of Canal Commissioners, actmg, as he 
had alvv'avs acted, without salary or emolument ; holding no other pubhc office 
in the State ; and the Van Buren or Bucktail party then holdmg m their hands 
the reins of government, with a majority of their friends on the Canal BoarU, he 
was suddenfy and summarily ejected from the Board, although not a whisper 
was heard against the purity and noble disinterestedness of his conduct m that 
hisrhlv important trust. This wanton attack upon his feelings roused the whole 
State--the slanders of the Butlers, Croswells, and their allies, could not prevent 
the manly and the generous of all parties from perceiving their jealousy, in- 
gratitude, and malignant enmity-and at the next election lor Governor, De 
Witt Clinton was borne to the seat which his honored uncle, George Clinton, had 
so lonE and so worthily tilled, by the acclamations of the people-h.s majority 
over Col. Youn-, the candidate of those who had expelled him, having been 
nearly 17,000. "How an act like this atones, in the minds ot good men, tor 
many popular errors ! How the memory of such a deed of justice warms the 
soul to new exertions for enlightening and bettering the condition of society. 

"TirWitt Clinton bears voluntan- testimony that Christopher t<>'l««V?hP^s';i?e "Ihe" cfnTs'and tu^ovf- 
from Ireland, " wa. tho lirstpersot. who «"S!^ested to the govx-rnment rf^^^^^^^ 

,nents on the Ontario roiite. Colles was a man .>! f "'^ chawctcr «" ^fj! ;'\'^^",p„i,iature referred his plans 
m the nmthematics." This suggestion wa. ^^<^<^^}f"^^ ' 'f^: "-.^s ma^ to enah e h'm survey the rente, 
to a coinmiuee ; next yenr a pnblle appropriation <>( just f}^-^^''''t^f^,eVm'^^Yhnv far we owe the occa- 
wh.ch he did, and published a pan.phlet '^^vorable to a cam 1. ..Ler es C D CokllnJ, -to the ability with 
sion," of celebrating the union ot the f tiant.c and tl^^e srcat 1. krs^^^ ^^.}^^ ^^^ 

which he developed the great »'>^f"|'^ef,/''J^3'^rf,t\,icnheTr^ niigiil be made-and 

!akes-to the clear views he presented of the laciluy ,^f''X, f" CoUes anned the canals-Clinton, the 

there were 64 yeas, " principally, .f "'"' ''"'''^'V 'f,*' .[s onoo«ents " Vaa Crcn nav have been friendly to 
ralists," says Hammond. " The 36 noes were chictlj ^'f "W>""«".'^: tv,,; .t",,, whoi when dead, ho mcUiiow- 
the measure, or he may not. VVhy was h<> so v,,,d cl.ve l n .% ids the m.n ^ ^^_^^^l ^_^^^^^|., 

ledged to have been the means of its "' ~<^,'"P''f' "J^^" ;,„]1';V '! ^t i, |rny HMl sent repicsentutives to 
Whv did the presses of his party try to un.lcrvalue the , "f "''''^^•'■' ■„ ™' •;;ji!/^^^ Tammany society 

the Assembly who were the deadly ;>tn'""e"t^of the canals. Aim ng 11 e '»»V 'a ^^^^^^__^^_^j g^^,^^ 

was a part of a deer's wil worn in the hat. Hence ''^« ."" " f 'l\,f,'',';^^^^^^^ Even when Van 

'page 163. No. 37), Van Buren, and the enemies of t-l'nton . nd 1 is can.> pon^^ [luinmond. 

Buren joined in the nomination of Clinton f^ /"^^f "«.'•• h«/^^'Vo'^»' ^/^^^ tiJne. should be 

he " wished to create n council which shoul.l be "^'"'"''''y^''" ""'""■ ''^^^^^^^^^^^^ to a friend in Columhie 
really hostile to the Covernor." He succeeded, ami the moment it was cnosen vmoit 
county, " All is safe Seymour ! Peyinour ! Seymour . 



CUNNINGHAM, OR THE EVIDENCE OF A MANLY SPIRIT. 51 

For What Sin, smce committed by those electors o. their forefathers have such 
Intriguing, cold-hearted, artful partisans, as a Van Buren, a \ nght a Ihroop, 
and iTla cy, been since placed in the elevated station wh.chth.s great man once 
aSorned' Perhaps it wis to render n.ore striking, the difference between men 
merX popular, and those noblemen of nature (or, il ye willot civilisation), 
who leivJ the mpress of their worth on the earth and the dwellers therein. 

On the 12^ of April, 1S24, the Assembly received h-om the Senate, a resolu- 
tion to which their concurrence was requested, for the numediate removal of 
Dp Witt Clinton from the office of Canal Commissioner. 

Mr Cunningham, of Montgomery, warned the House against becoming a 
partner in the ungrateful deed. His eloquent speech I take from Hammond s 
History : 

" I rise " said Mr. Cunningham, " with no ordinary feeling of surprise and astonishment at 
tlicresoTutiunust read, as coming from the Senate. Sir, it is calculated to rouse the leehngs 

• ™ h eit man on this flooP Its very approach Avas marked with black ingratitude and 
blrJ i ' F "w yS Snd iionorabJpJi^ose has this resolution been sent here lor con- 
Srrence a the very las^ moment of our session ! Is it to create discord among "^ and de- 
stTcv hat ha mon and good iVeling which ought to prevail at our separation ? We have 

e U ri^n ' o th ee montl.s in legislation, and not one word has been said, intimating a desire 
o itemion K. expel that honnralile gentleman from the board ot canal commiss.one..; & . , 
he was cal le I to that pla.e bv the united voice and common consent ot the people o his state 
on ac^oun of is pec , liar and transcendent fitness to preside at that board, and bv •"- «.unsel 
s inu\a e and forward the great undertaking. His labor, lor years, lias been ardent and un- 
'easin'lortle public goodt he endured .slander and persecution trom every direction, like a 
Chdst?an na tn but^steadfa.st in his purpose, he pursued his course with a lirm and steady 
s^eruntil iTwas crowned with success, and the most ardent ot his oppc^ers sat in suUeu 
s See For what, let me ask, did Mr. Clinton endure all this 1 H'^. rt for Lkcsakc ofamlan, ? 
No sir- i. was lor Ihe honor and welfare of his state ; it urcs /row noble and jmtnotic molvvesjo, 
wkkh he r/s/.-s nolhin "; nor did he expert anything bid tlw gratiMtde ofmfdoi,-cil,=ens xNow sii , I 
pu the question to th s honorable House to decide, upon the oath which they have taken, and upon 
fhei i se of proprietv and honor, whether they are ready, by their votes, to commit the sin 
: iStul ! What can we charge to Mr. Clinton 1 What can we say he has been gui ty 
of t at he should be sin-led out as an object of state vengeance ? Will .some Iriend ot this 
reso uti. n be kind enough to inform ine ! Sir, I challenge an inquiry; I demand Irom the 
suppoi e s of this high-handed measure, that they lay their hands on their hearts, and answer 
me?m V lor what cause is this man to be removed ] I dare assert, m luy place, that his doings 
a a caaal commissioner are unimpeached and unimpeachable, ^."^.^"^'L^^^^ave even elicU^^ 
the plaudits and admiration of his political enemies. This, sir, is the official characte ol the 
nia. whom we now seek to destroj'*. I hope that this House will pardon me, when I freelv 
declare mv opinion that this resolution was engendered m the most unhallowed leehngs ot 
malice to effect some nefarious secret purpose, at the expense ot the honor and integrity ot 
this Le-islature. However hard it may seem, it is the irresistible impulse o my mind. Mr. 
ainUmisnot in th^ political market; he reposes in the shades ot honorable retiremeM;/«; 
asks for no office, and possesses nmie but the om of which he is abovt to be stripped Ihe benatt, 
it appears, have been actuated by some cruel and Malignant passion, unaccounted for,* and tiavc 

* To show how (lead t.. every other feeling, save that of banding together for party pliuuler Van B"ren and 
his band of'iro iJiuen wert. I offer the following ca.es. Until 1823, a Council ol Api-ointn.ent, elected by the 
Hour f A^ie" 1, y!co Urollecl the otiicial patronage of the state of N. Y, This Counc, ^as annually chosen, 
and iii I'eb IHIG when th.^ House met, Peter Allen, from Ontario county, tnuk his sea , with only 3095 votes. 
^rtheexclnUon of Henry Fellows, who had 37-J.->. In Pennington, printed ballots .narked " Hennj Fe ow^ 
in uU werp used- and with the town clerk was tiled the certilicate of votes, with the name also in lull , but 
in he duiXate sent to the county clerk it was written " nci. Fellows." Well knowing that the forty nine 
lotes were lor M^tV 1 fco^^^^^^^^ frandulent clerk rejecte.l them, as the rejection w-ould return A en 

though h^ had the fewest votes. In the Assemblv, W. A. Duer presented the petition ol Jellows. offering 

Z-t .at he" n^ha AlU not a member.and desiring that justice might at once be done the count> 

Alenw-ls asked if he had any statement to make to the contrary, but he was silent. Fellows belonged to the 
ftderal Dartv • Allen to the bucktails. When a preliminai-y question was to be taken on Allen s case, it was 
obilcMat ke ou"ht not to vote where he had a personal interest ; the Speaker decided that he co, Id vote ; 
aSieal was n.-ade to the House, and the Speaker decided that Alien '^•'"'if^^Vh' ''>" ..^j, Jthe seat U 
so very equally divided, that if the appointing power or council conld be voted tor- ^jh « A'"e" f d the seat, it 
would be Van Burenish, bucktail, democratic ; but ,f justice were ^^^t.^lone and tell vs put Alle^^^ 
the federalists would elect the council. They therr^^ore opposed steadily »!' .»'^'' ""■':'" ^^"^^^^ 
vote hid secured Uhroujjh Perley Kcyes, fcc), for their friends, the control ol the oihces throughout the state 
for 181G and next day appointed a committee on elections with a bucktail majority who unanimously awarded 
he seat o Fc"rows on no other evi.lence than that which was before the House the day ,t rne , and which the 
worhress party ^, Allen, had not then gainsayed ; the Hm.se then vnte.l Allen out and Fellows in, 121 to 1. 



52 COULD FLAGG DESCEND SO LOW ! LOOK AT THE NOTE. 

made a nish upon this House, and taken us on surprise. The resolution may pass; but 
if it does, my word for it, Ave are dis?:i"aced in the judgment and good sense ol an injured but 
inteliio-en't comuivmitv. Whatever the fate of this resolution may be, let it be remembered 
that Mr. Clinton has acquired ;i reputation not to be destroyed by the pitiful malice of a few 
leading partisans of the dav. When the contemptible party strifes vi' the hour shall have 
passed^'bv, rnid Ike political haranincrs and jugiilcrs, who nov; hang round litis L'apit'jl for mhsid- 
mrc shall' lie overwhelmed and forgotten in their own insignilicance— when the gentle breeze 
shall pass over the tomb of that great man, carrying with it the just tribute ol honor and 
praise which is now withheld— the pen of the future iiistorian, in better days and m better 
times will do him lustice, and erect to his memory a proud monument of fame, as imperisha- 
ble as the splendid" works which owe their origin to his genius anil perseverance. This vote 
is probably the last that Avill be given this session, and 1 pray God it may lie such as will not 
di.sgrace us in the eyes of our constituents.'' 

Give me a Cunningliam and a Clinton for " Native Americans I'' Such men 
will always know how to treat aright foreigner and native, friencj and foe. Of 
such natives as them any land might be proud. Cunningham's heart was in the 

rigiit place. 

The Assembly concurred with the Senate, 64 to 34. Among those who 
voted to expel Clinton thus summarily, I find the names of H. Wheaton^ now 
envoy to Berlin ; A. C. Flagg, now Comptroller ; General James Tallmadge, 
Isaac Pierson, and Thomas Hyatt. Among his friends were Messrs. Barstow,^ 
James Benedict, Campbell, Cooper, John Crary, Furman, IMcCrea, Isaac 
Rio-gs, Thorne, Whiting, Tredwell, Ezra Smith, and Wilkin. 

\ddresses and resolutions in honor of Clinton were signed on this occasion, 
by M Clarkson, W. Bayard, P. Hone, T. A. Emmet, N. Fish, W. Few, C. 
P. White, S. Whitney, Preserved Fish, C. D. Colden, T. Eddy, R. Bogardus, 
John Rathbone, and C. G. Haines, New York ; and by John Tayler, James INIc- 
Kown, William James, J. H. Wendell, Chandler Starr, Hammond, the historian, 
Gideon Hawley, Isaiah Townsend, T. Van Vechten, E. Jenkins, S. M. Hop- 

Van Buren was then a senator and attorney general, and his party, to a inan, si.rported this great wron?, and 
their presscritphedt How little of .Icn.ocracy, of justice, of the spirit of Irce n.sutut.ons there was lu the e 

,roceedin''s, the cool and candid reader is left to jud«e. The evi.lence was read openly an. vva. entirely dou- 
menmv the proofs were clear and nut ^'ainsayed, yet the real representative was shut out til the "«"? ''i^si- 
nessoPthe session was achieved «njuslly ; J.y which the l,uc!<,ai!s, to a n-"; -'>"'"-' '«li: °-", f,',f ^"«^' 
conduct bv votinc out lli6 intruder almost unanimously. "The democrats n the As»emhl> , says the. >^.Y. 
Even ng 'osrof Fel>. 2-2^ '"= ^viil not be bound by the rules o the JIou e 

fheychm so the executive branch of ^rovernment by means of .he vote of a man who they bcnrselves after h s 
vutl has been civcn, acknowled-ie had no business there, but whom they had first pcnnitle.l to declare bj h,> 
own vo'elhat^he had ; tiiey publishc.i an answer to the Governor's speech which was never accepted ; n 

al V thev s v such a iir^ceedure is, in the opinion of this House, unconstituKonal and illegal which is so lar from 
the tnth that drecy the contrary ai)pears on the face of their own journals. A true specimen of unbrii. -kd 
democracy." v'rn Buren would Imvi lost his ofricc of Attorney General had his parly acted honestly as judges 

'^\amMiond who in many things, displavs, to inv mind, real independence of character ; although i^'-]f^ ^!^2:r 
crt ,a ri HnCwml " o^^^^^ doctrin, s a • a test, seems to show that he was not always so ; M.ve-s anothe. Pe er 
AllVnr^^einZ-Se-nen 1817 in which Youns and Van Buren cut a wr.lchert tigure as judjios It is this: 
^ ™e wl^tern'Di'u;;'! twc'sc^-uo;: were to be' cbosen-o„e for four yea.. »f^. "-^''-/•;.-;!-;, f, ""l^ "^^ 
tjon. ny law, 1.., of the two chosen together, who has the most ^"'V^' '^f^^ " , .P/'f:;' f, , r 'ed that 5 009 

wZuI iCnd ■ as^ I^ v- w- f t leelecr.rs who spelled Jedcdinh swore, to the ^nt.sfaciion ot the senate s 
oin .it^,'th^ Oiey \J ;m^:;cd ':L:d., and these. 4^ added U. the 14 085 wh.. ^^/I- -'.; - «-- j;?^ 
v^-.,i.. i-id-V ni- 18 nioie iban Wilscin wavin" noliing of Dili other 59, which II wat- cltJr wi ic .iiso iiii< iiu<^i iwi 
r." dergtst' The Zn U^ that Wilson had not alleged ^^ ^}:''^^^^l^:^ HZ, 

^ i ist in tl e dislri. .-and, of course. Ihat Jrdiah I', ought to sit lor four y. ais and Isa.ic WiUo.i for ' < ■ | " 
.e"; be wo opinions on ^uch a .pics.io.i 7 There wer.^ Van Buren rose ,,, his place ami ..^-..lys p^^^^ 
calMle fewest votes .he most an.l give the long leri.. lo Wilson-and Samuel Voiuig pro.luced the iWM.t .aid 
'her. we e in it bo.li .1, diali and Jmlediah, and hence he w;ouia say .hat W> son had he mos, "t-^^;^^ V,m Bu- 
r".-s parlv {M hut Waller Bow.ie) w.nt will, l.im in iavorol Wilson, M .o ''• ' '>f ^jvo I " ^ ^ |,-_^s^s "^^ 
\\'. „> li,l not vo'e Lawvers Canilne Van Buren, Young, Roger Sliinner, and Ogdeii weie in ihi lajoriiy— 
, w ; w"t:"i;e ,.!;h"^:.^,ing"hus opemy, can we wo.ider at seeing ^V^-^.^^^^^:^:, slSbir- 
bliiiL' li-'h.in.' in the roiirts. and using Maicy-s mock messages to make money h), as a Wall slie.i Mockjoo rr 
T S\ r> "mde r IS .ba. N. Y. shonfd appoint such a person her ut.on.ey P'^"<^7 ' "%'f ' ''"^''-i^.^ ,^',^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
admin istVrin.' nubli.' instioe ihroiigh the most proHisate characters m llie community. Well micbr llammo u si y 

hie comptroller of the stale, whom Skinner and lii« conned had just f^^oved from omt^^ o^^^ simple prlnroJle 
ihal he was too honest, too great a check upon octin^-democrats, such as I am here describmg. 



WRIGHT AND VAN BUREN PERSECUTING CLINTON. 



$3 



kins, and Alfred Conckling, Albany. The malice of his enemies must have 
injuriously affected their insulting bargain of the State, which was to be deli- 
vered to the minority caucus for Crawford next November.* 

Clinton's expulsion was proposed in the Senate, by John Bowman of Monroe, 
and voted for by (^ Silas Wright, now Governor — ^ Walter Bowne, since 
Mayor of New York — {^ Charles E. Dudley, successor to Van Buren as U. 
S. Senator — ^i^ Jonas Earll, junior, Canal Commissioner, P. M. of Syracuse, 

&c. {^Heman J. Redtiekl, whom Wright wanted Clinton to make a Judge — 

^fe. Edward P. Livingston, Van Buren's candidate for Lieut. Governor — 
§t^ Judge James Mallory, for whom Marcy had such tender feelings, [p. 199, 
no. 140."] — {ji^ Perley Keyes, the political schoolmaster of Silas Wright — 
^ John Letterts, from Long Island — i^ Bowman, the mover— ^ James 

Burt— ^ Byram Green — (^ James McCail— (i^ Greenly—^ 

Haio-ht — i^'Co], Farrand Stranahan — {a^=> John Sudam — fli^^ Stephen Thorn— 
gf^ Melancthon Wheeler — (jr^ Sherman Woostef — and ^ General Jasper 
Ward,,Avho did not wait to be expelled the Senate, as his history will tell. 
Some of these men may have acted without thought, but the Wrights, Bownes, 
Dudleys, Earlls, Stranahans, and Wards, knew what they were about. As 
Wright says to Van Buren, they did not want to do "journey work," like the 
Feds. It wouldn't be their fault if they failed to seize the spoils. When this 
vote was o-iven, Marcy was Comptroller — his father-in-law, Knower, Treasurer 
— CrosweTl printed for the State, and manufactured " opinion " for the retail 
presses of the party. The men who went this length would have enacted 
" Joseph's brethren " in Genesis, or driven Mordecai from the king's gate, as 
■we have it in Esther. Bowman got the Rochester Bank charter that .season. 



* Colonel Young was Clinton's successor, as the leading member on the canal hoard, and approved of his 
unjust removal. Unlike Clinton, however, the CciUmel served for fny, juul the comniis^inn, instead of beini,', 



!isit()U"ht composed of men of various politics ami hisjh character, liegenera ted too much info a mere party 
machine to enrich the political leaders and their electioneering depemleiits. Marcy wrote in the Troy Budget, 
and Croswell in the Argus, censurins.' Clinton's canal policy. When it was seen that a few years would coni- 




presented to the legislature a report, in his official capacity, stating his belief that a parallel canal, or double 
locks the whole distance, alongbide the Erie canal, would soon l)e indispensable— that the canals would soon 
pay ofl" their debt and yield a great revenue besides— and ihatotiier states would profit by the laudable exam- 
ple o*" N y — that within ten years the tolls would probably be tripled, and (it iu)t rpduc^•d) might, in less 
than filty vear* amount to §10,000,000. V\^hen reminded of this report lately in Senate, he remarked that even 
now the tolls on the canals would be five millions had they not lieen reduced. Why then, asked General 
Clark did vou state in 1839, in your report on finance, that " Human governirient is, as it always has been, 
the crave of productive industry :— that every step it takes in endeavoring to carry on works of labor of any 
kind is attended with sacrifice and waste to the conmiunit^,-, and sinks it deeper and deeper in debt :— that the 
songs of ' internal improvement' are libels on the laws of God, and a deadly mildew upon the happiness and 
prosperity of man !— that, with reference to canal loans, &c., a convention will be called, which will be in 
structed to reon-anize and remodel our prostrate constitution; and which convention will repudiate the debt ; 
will affix the impress of infamy upon past profligate laws ; and erect new barriers for the future !— that the 
community has been abused and deceived, for years, by the constant reiteration of the falsehood, that the Erie 
and Champlain canals were enriching the state, whereas, it is a truth within the reach of all, that so far from 
having paid the cost of their construction, there would be now a debt against them, had they not received the 
aldof the auction and salt duties of $8,4o9,0fi9r' j. ^,, . u ..u • t , 

On the 17th of August, Young's report, above quoted, appeared in full in the Albany Argus, the editor of 
which said, " That this is a most able and powerful document no one will deny." Of course he did not say 
that he concurred in all its positions. „ ^^. ... ^ ,, ,, ,.,, . 

When Young's Internal Improvement Report of 132) appeared, it was followed by a bill in the Senate for 
the survey of 19 new canal routes, including the Chenango, Black River, and Genesee Vallev— yet in a few 
years thereafter, he denounced the Chenango canal, affirming that Pennsylvania and New York " had been 
forced by the de'mafozues of each, into the hostile attitude of profligate rivalry ; and each has been recklesgly 
goaded alon" bv th" bloody lash of internal improvement." I ought to state here, that, in 1835 and 183fl, he 
offered an ableopposition'to the bills for constructing the Chenango and Genesee Valley canals— and that, in 
his report of 1830 he showed that the Chenango canal would cost over a million of dollars, and that its reve- 
nue would not pay either for interest, repairs, or even superintendence, but give value to the lands of specu- 
lators at the public cost. In the late discussions in Senate, on the extravagant expenditures on the canals, 
Mr. Wright said, and, I think, truly, " Let there be competition in labor, not in mere parly fealty. This busi- 
ness of repairs ofrepairing the caaals, had become a party machine, put in operation iust before election, and 
hence the increase of expenditures." Another senator, Putnam, showed that ?500,000 had been paid for 
neglects to fulfil contracts, in giving which it appears there is enough of favoritism. It seems that two or 
three millions of the canal funds have passed through Young's hands : but 1 hear of no case ia which he lias 
misapplied them. 



54 IN LIFE HE CURSED HliM WHOM IN DKA'i'H HE ULESSED. 

Was there a bargain to immolate Clinton and raise Crawford, connected with 
that sale of the public patrimony, also ? 

Jedediah Morgan, John Cramer, and Archibald Mclntyre (not the comptroller) 
were its only opponents ! They may well feel proud of it. 

Allow me to change the scene to 1828 — Clinton in his coffin, and Van Buren 
in Washington, thus addressing the members of Congress relative to the 
deceased : — " The high order of his talents, the untiring zeal and great success 
with which those talents have, through a series of years, been devoted to the 
prosecution of plans of great public utility, are known to you all. * * * The 
greatest public improvement of the age in which we live, was commenced under 
the guidance of his counsels, and splendidly accomplished under his immediate 
auspices. * * * The triumphs of his talents and patriotism cannot fail to become 
monuments of high and enduring fame. * * * I am greatly tempted to envy 
him the grave with its honors." 

How like unto Balaam's conduct when Balak sent his princes to induce him to 
curse Israel, [Numbers xxiii.] was the politic Van Buren's ! Balaam wished to 
curse but durst not. " Hoic shall I curse whom God hath not cursed? How shall I 
defy ivhoin the Lord hath not defied ? Let me die the death of the righteous, and 
let my last end be like his P"** What a commentary upon 1824, was the funeral 

* In 181!>. there was a va(?anc\ on tlie l)eneh of the Supreme Court of the State of New 
York, which a mutual friend of Clinton and of Van Buren, then high in office, told Clinion 
that Van Buren wished to till — that he had said .so to him, and given as a reason that he was 
weary of thw turmoil of politics--and that it was politic and expedient to give him the judge- 
ship. "As a measure of mere policy,'' said Clinton, '-it might be expedient; but so unprin- 
cipled a man do I consider Mr. Van Buren, that 1 could never justify myself in making such 
an experiment, merely for the sake of disarming his resentment aijainst me."' John 'Wood- 
Avorth was appointed, of whom Butler speaks so spitefully in his letters, and Van Buren, Butler, 
and their confederates, persecuted Clinton till his death, and then — not till then — praised him 
as the greatest of .statesmen and of patriots. 

The bitter hatred of Van Buren to Clinton may be inferred from Butler's letters. He was 
at Sandy Hill when Woodworth was appointed. Van Buren was a Senator at Albany in 
18lft-l9, and was almost violent in his opposition to Rufus King, then a candidate lor the U. 
S. Senate. In December. IHl'J, he wheeled round to the side of King, wrote a pamphlet on 
his behalf — and why ? He had become satistied that King was not the friend of Clinton ! 
" Sensible as J am (.^ays Van Buren) of the great merits of Mr. King, and of the advantages 
wliich would probably result fiom his ap])ointment, still, did I believe that he was opposed to 
us in the present coniroversy between the jepublicau jirniii and Mr. Clint, fn and hia Jollnvcrs ,- 
could 1 even supjiose that he looked with linlilji r< nrr on tlic stru<.'<.(le of the great body of our 
citizens to extricate themselves fjoman iiifiiinri:[C\\nlo\v^^ \(hii/h lias so loni; /msxf/ upon this 
stal-e, and vndrr vihifh she can wver ofqiiirc her trii-c dcvalion in the Ihiiov, 1 have no hesitation 
in sa)'ing, I would oppose his a])pointnient." 

Colonel Duane, ever free and fearless, denounced Van Buren and his new allies for their 
persecution of Clinton. In the Aurora of October, IS-Jl. I find these remarks: 

'• But why caknnniate Mr. Clinton ^ Because ihe eminence oi his qualifications, and the 
place which he holds, in the esteem of all iiUelligenl ami liberal minds, renders him an object 
of apprehension tu tliose ^ho are in jMiwer. and who look to him as a fearuil rival, from the 
disparity between their faculties, and the place he holds in tJie eyes and hearts of the people. 
For this calumny of Mr. C. the publication of the laws, the patronage of the post-office, and all 
the miseralile crumbs of a corrupt .system are distributed, showing the melajicholy fact thai the 
press may be jiurchased for a pitiful annual stipend — and perverted into an engine of national 
degradation.'' 

William L. Stone, in the N. Y. Commercial of 0<t. M, lH-28, asks several leading questions 
ol Van Buren's supporters— among them these: 

'• 'Who, amoiiir ilie whole host of Mi'. Clinton's enemies, was so active and so arifid as Mr. 
Van Biu-en ''. Who so relentless and so per.seculing ? VVliat political plan for developing the 
resources of the slate did Mr. Clinton ever devise, that Mi'. Van Buren did not attempt either 
to thwart, or to deprive him of the hunor ! What \ya\\\ did Mr. Clinton ever propnse to travel 
that Mr. Van Buren did not cro.ss? When did Air. Clintoir ever raise his arm in the public 
service tliat Mr. Van Buren ilid not attempt to paralyze it [ When did Mr. Van Buren's hos- 
tility to Mr. Clinton ever sleep'? Not until the illustrious man slept with his fathers, and the 
grave had dosed upon his remains. Then it was, and not till then, that Mr. Van Buren became 
aware «f the talents, the virtues, the inestimable worth of Mr. Clinton.' 



VAN BUREN'S caucus, OR DEMOCRACY UPSIDE DOWN, 55 

parade of 1S2S, with Sava-e, Sutherland, Flagg and Marcy decorated wrth 
Sf mournh..' for Clintourand among his pall- bearers ! What a censure the 
bill to reCd Cflinton's invaluable services, by a grant of money to h.s chddren 
and by the very men whose envy of his talents had demed him, only four years 
before the humble privilege of serving his country withou fee or reward, 
poor bu disinterested! in the midst of Van Buren's greedy spoilsmen ! Andrew 
Jackson's birthday toast, March 15, 1828, was, '' 1 ne memory of De Witt 
Clinton the Patriot, the 'Philanthropist, and the distinguished Statesman. In 
his death New York has lost one of her most useful sons, and the nation one 
of its brightest ornaments." Even Ritchie, whose co umns had teenaed with 
abue of^Clinton, in former years, was moved; and the Richmond Enquirer 
thus pronounced his eulogy :-" A great man has fallen in Israel ! A man who 
was desiccated for the first chair in the nation is cut off in the midst of his 
honors. But his name will go down to posterity, full of honor, and his works 
are his monument." 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Crawford Caucus of 1824.™ Fan Buren, Cambreleng, and Slevenson tram-- 
nleoithe Democratic Principle. ^Secret Combinahon oj Regency Leaders -The 
^Electoral Law. -Monarchical Features in our S y stem— Flag g,_ Wnght, Earll, 
Crosu-clL Van Buren, and the rest of the Albany Oligarchs umting to pntdown 
p[^cOpinion.-Yoms np for Governor. -The Old Federahsts.-Wnght 
and the Seventeen. 

In one day, in the winter of 1824, two notices appeared in the National In- 
tellio-encer-the first calling a meeting or caucus of tne members of Congress, 
to ominate fit persons t. fill the offices of President and Vice President ot the 
United States-the oth ■:, a declaration signed by R.M^ Johnson, John H. 
Ea on, R. Y. Playne, S. D. Ingham, Geo. Kremer, J. R. Poinsett, and others, 
Uiat they had been informed, that of 261 members, 181 were opposed to the 
caucus, and probably more. On the 14th of February, 66 members attended a 
caucus at the Capitol: Van Buren moved that they be called by states, and 
said '^that the people were anxiously waiting for a nomination, and he telt 
confident that a large%ortion of the re, blicans of the Union were decidedly m 
favor of this mode of nomination, and that it was quite necessary that it should 
be made" The ballot showed 61 votes for Crawford, 2 for Adams, and 1 
ea-h for' Macon and Jackson, to be President-and 57 votes for Gallatin, as 
Vice President. Crawford and Gallatin were nominated. 

Amon.r the members taking part in this wonderful piece of imposture, were 
C C. Cambreleng, Andrew Stevenson, L. wis Eaton, Lot Clark, PP. Barbour 
and John Forsyth. Even if the practice of a virtual election of the President 
bv Congress, through a caucus, had been defensible, a caucus m favor oi one, 
Jheve all the candidates were of one party, was confining the people s choice 
to one person, and thus stifling public opinion and rescinding m so far the con- 



stitution. 



• The "^tate of North Carolina had, iu l8l8, proposed, as amendments to the U. S. consu- 
t,,tion that he representatives in congi-ess should be chosen by separate districts, made as 
lnua?\n pomdatiorarpoSMe by the several state legislatures ; each district to elect one mem- 
K by SifSefolitTlaalified electors-and that, for the purpose of electing electors ot pies.. 



56 BUCKTAIL PRINCIPLES. ROTTEN BOROUGHS OUT OP ENGLAND. 

In Jaauary, 1824, tliere might be seen the really paradoxical spectacle of a 
body of men in ihe legislature, arrogating to themselves the exclusive title of 
republicans, ike democracy^ who were unwearied in endeavoring to defeat the 
pfople's insiriiCtions, by giving the go-by to a law required by the whole state, 
giving to the country, and not reserving to party leaders in the Legislature, the 
election of electors of President and Vice President. I hope the day draws 
near in which the people will vote directly for the men of their choice to these 
olfices, and that on the same day too, throughout the republic. 

By reference to B. F. Butler's letters, pp. 168, 169, and to Hoyt's, Croswell's, 
Van Buren's, Skinner's, and Livingston's, pp. 193 to 198, it will be seen that 
there was a secret combination among the leaders to keep power from the 
people^ and to use it contrary to their well known will. " If Clinton is very 
dangerous, (says Livingston,) they [the party in the legislature] will go one 
way ; and if it is thought he cannot make any difficulty, they will go t'other 
way." The putriuls thus acting for Van Buren and Crawford, had the assurance 
to talk of a bargain between President Adams and Secretary Clay ! ! A. C. 
Fiagg seems to have been the leader of the oligarchs in the Assembly. His 
press, the Piattsburgh Republican, and also the Albany Argus, had come out in 
favor of the measure before the election, and then moved round to another course.* 



deni and vice president, each state ought to be divided into separate districts, as many as it was 
entitled loi'leciors; each of said districts to be contiguous, and convenient for the people to meet 
in, and lo choose one representative. This was the district system, both for electors andCongress- 
n^ien, and eleven Senators, including Bowne, Skinner, Seymour, and Livingston, (Peter R.,) sup- 
ported it. Saratici Young, Van Biu-en, Cantine, Tibbets, and six others, opposed it. Several 
years after, in the U. S. Senate, Van Buren proposed to divide each of the states into as many 
districts as its number of electors — each district to choose one elector — the electors, so chosen, to 
meet and vote for president and vice president ; and in case no one candidate had a raajoritj' 
of their voices, they were to be convened again, to vote for one of the two candidates to whom 
tliey had given the most votes before ; and then, if the votes were e^^ual, and no choice made, 
the House of Representatives were to make a choice. He agitated this question for three years. 
and others have Icepi some reform or otiier belbre the community ever since, but no steaay and 
connected etibri has been made lo afford a real remedy for a great and serious difficulty. 

There are ma:iy features in the United States system of government that approai^h much 
nearer to the Brifish and French monarchical plan, than to democracy, in tlic Oeserver, 
New York, 20th December, 1823, the editor says : — 

" Our readers are aware tliat, as the constitution now stands, if the electors fail to choose on 
the first trial, the choice devolves on the House of Representatives, and that in tliis case die 
representatives of caci; stats are entitled to one vote. The present number of states in the 
Union is tweiuv'-tbir-. Thirteen arc a majority. The population of the United States, in 1820, 
was nearly 10,UOO,()00. Thiiieen states can be selected, whose joint population is less tJian 
£.'^00.0;K\ Of coiuse, it is possible that 1,100,000 persons, or a little more than onc-tcnth part 
of li-.e population ol the Unued States, may legally appoint the President of the United States, 
in opposition to the will of the other nine-tenths. This case, moreover, is not a solitary one. 
li is a fEci, thai the principle \;aich we so strongly condemn in the English rotten borough sys- 
U'.m, pcryailes eveiy part of rhc constitution of the United States, and threatens, in tlie end, to 
lie as riiinous to ttie rights of the people in this country, as it has been in Great Britain. The 
treaiy->naking power is vested by the constitution in t)ie President and rvvo-thirds of the Senate. 
Two-thirds of tne Senate represent two-thirds of the state.-- — that is, at present, si.xteen out of 
twenty-fou/. Si.\-teen states can be selected, whose joint population does not exceed 3,400,000. 
h is p:)ssib'c, therefore, that n-eaties may be mads in opposition to the wishes of two-thirds of 
the American people." 

Ur;der the last Congressional apportionment, a presidential election, if carried into the Hou.se 
of Representatives, might be decided against a candidate supported by more Uian two-thirds of 
the population, property, and representation in that House, of the whole Union, and in favor 
'if a candidate not voie'l for by even one-third of tliese. The slave representation makes this 
uiie of iliiiigv still worse. Jackson, in iSS.'j, had but three votes out of seventy-three, in New 
Vu.k ami .\ew Bnglard ; but Van Buren united interests with him in 1828, and, witJi the help 
of the contractors, ofllce-eeekers, laTi/-":rs, and editors, converted many, myself among the 
number. 

* On the 3d of August, ^t a special session in Senate, Mr. Ogden moved a resolution " that 
it is expedient to pass a law "AtJupretent meeting oj the Icgidaiurt, giring to the p«ople 9t 



FLAGg's show. WRIGHT AND THE IMMORTAL SEVENTEEN. 57 

In 1824, Colonel Young was the candidate of the bucktail caucus, composed 
chiefly of members of the legislature friendly to Crawford, for governor. On the 
2d of April, this caucus, 106 in number, met ; and on the first ballot. Young had 
t)0 votes, and Joseph C. Yates 45 ; Erastus Root had 75 for lieutenant governor, 
and Burt 21. Root was for Crawford, Young for Clay, and both were defeated 
by Clinton and Tallmadge, who had their nominations from a state convention. 
Young was avowedly friendly, throughout, to the election of electors of President 
and Vice President by the people, and opposed to Van Buren's bargaining 
scheme of 1824, by v.'hich he and the Albany Regency sold, as it were, the 
votes of a hireling majority of bankjobbino- lawgivers, to a particular set of 
minority congressional caucusing profligates, and endeavored to pledge the votes 
of the state in opposition to the known wishes of a majority of the people. 
In one state, only, is the election of electors confided to the legislature now, 
and that is South Carolina. Young's steady opposition to Crawford ensured his 
defeat in the legislature, and caused Adams to be returned in his stead, as the 

this State the choice of electors of President and Vice President." Tlie noes Avere Silas 
Wrighi, Walter Bowne, John Sudain, F. S/ranahan. E. P. Livingston, Jumper Ward, Jas. 
Aialfory, .Tonas Earll, Charles E. Dudley, Perlcy Keyes, Green, Greenly, Bronson, Lofferls, 
Thorn, Wheeler, Wooster, IM'Call and "Heman, J. Redlield. . Among the «?/« were Archi- 
bald M'Imire, John Cramer, Haight, Burt, Lynde, and Burrows. Flagg and liis friends pre- 
temied that a special session was illegal, but were overruled. 

On the 5tb, the resolve, to give the people, and take from the Legislature the choice of 
electors, was carried in the asseml;iy, 75' to -ii; Croliu.s, Furm.in, AlcClurc, Riggs, Tall- 
madge. Wheaton, and Wilkin among the yeas. Flagg snid that " as the !:/inw vvas nov\- over and 
the names of ihe gentlemen spread on the record, he hoped they were ready to adjourn." Cole- 
man, the torv editor of the Post, called this voting a ridiculous larce — he was with Van Biuen, 
Fla^'g and Wright, for Crawford — and he weiU with Van Buren, too, lor King as senator in 
IMl^rand dead against tlie war and Clay and Madison, in 1H12. The senate would not act. 
But though Van Bm-en, Wriglit, Flagg, Keyes, Marcy, Knower and their artiul confederates, 
influenced the legislature to defy public opinion for two sessions, and to oust Clinton from 
the canal Board, they had their reward. Crawford failed to get the vote of N. Y. — he failed 
to get to be president — Clinton was elected as Governor by 17,000 majority, and Tallmadge 
Lieutenant Governor by 33,000, over Van Buren'.s nominees. Wright voted on the lOth of 
March to give the choice of electors to the people, by general ticket — he then proposed a com- 
plicated and prepo-sterous scheme which only got four supporters. " The fact was" (says Ham • 
mond), " Mr. Wright, previous to his election, had given the people to understand that he 
woulcCif elected, support a bill giving to the people'the right to choose presidential electors. 
All this manoeuvring was for the purpose of exhibiting an appearance of redeeming that 
pledge. We shall shortlv find him voting lor an indefinite postponement of the bill." And 
it is a man who could thus descend to the meanness of tricking the men he pretended to repre- 
sent, who is at this day governor of New York. The timber out of whieli good governors 
are made must be scarce'" in these parts. The bill got the go-by same day (10 Marc4i), E. P. 
Livingston ha\ini,' moved to stop all consideration of the bill to give the people the choice of 
a president till November, when it would be useless for another four years. Him-self and 
Bowman, Bon-ne, Bronson, Dudley, (Hovt's correspondent,) Earll (canal Com'r), Greenly, 
Keyes (Silas Wright's mentor), Lefterts, Mallory, M'Call, Redfield, Stranahan, Sudam, Ward 
(jAsPKii), Wooster, and Governor Wright— the immortal 17 pretenders to a democracy they 
only practised, when, as Wright says in his letter (p. 203), they had to do journey work, being- 
unable to seize thk spoils. Col. Young, like his iriend Cramer, and General Root, was op- 
posed to Van Buren in this matter. Wright, then in his 30th year, voted to ronove Clinton 
from the canal board. It is enough to shake a man's faith in popular institutions when he 
sees such mcnas Van Buren and Wright succeed a Clinton as governorsof thisgreat state. Gene- 
ral Root preferred in 1824, and Van Buren in 1828, an election of electors by separate districts, 
because the various districts have a variety of interests, and each section of country should 
have a voice in the choice of chief magistrate. The arguments used in favor of a general ticket 
lor electors of president v.'ould justify to a far greater extent, the election of members of con- 
gress by general ticket, for the electors perl'orm but one act wliile the congressmen perform 
many. Young and Van Buren, however, are now .strongly in favor of election by general 
ticket, and South Carolina chooses her electors by the Legislature, after every other state has 
made a choice by the people. Only one of the above seventeen ventured to re-appear as a can- 
tlidatCj and he was swept away by the overwhelming majority given to his opponent. 



68 TIIK TEKM FEDEKALIbT AS A KEPROACH. BUKK FOR JACKSON. 

second candidate, instead of being behind Crawford and Clay, and not a 
candidate at all. Thus it was through New York that Adams became 
President. Adams had 84 votes, including 32 from this state, obtained through 
a union of the friends of Clay and Adams in the legislature. Crawford had 41, 
but would have had 73 had he got the 32 from N. Y., and Adams but .o2. 
Instead of applying to parties the names which would most clearly indicate 
their principles, the usage is, to apply to an opponent any term which popular 
leaders and presses have rendered odious to the more ignorant. Young de- 
nounced, not long since, the supporters of .John Q. Adams an federalists. When 
it was shown that he had aided Adams' election in 1824, he said that at that 
lime Adams was a good democrat. If so, why abuse Clay for preferring one 
democrat to another 1 The truth is, that Biair, Croswell, and many other 
unprincipled hirelings use the term federalist as a reproach, and their impudence 
in so doing is unmatched, for Taney, McLane, Bryant, Buchanan, Ingersol, 
Bleecker, (Jakley, Powers, Beekman, Vand(>rpool, and very many others of the 
party calling itself democratic, were formerly members of the great federal 
party, which numbers thousands of the greatest, wisest, and best names known 
to American history. It is now no more ; it had its faults, its merits, its un- 
worthy members — but it was honored in not having reared and educated a Burr 
and a Van Buren. Col. Young, in Senate, Feb. 4, 184G [Argus report] does 
not hesitate severely to censure Van Buren for the Crawford caucus of 1824 ;. 
he denounces it as " made by a minority of the democratic members of 
congress ; and that very act broke down that machinery, for never since have 
members of congress nominated a piesident. It was regarded as so great an 
outrage on the former practice — for never before had a minority undertaken to 
nominate — that the whole sy.stem broke down." 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Andrett) Jackson nominated for President, in l&ir), hij Col. Burr. -The Texas 
Movement. — Polk and Slavery.— SwarticmtOs Proceedinija. — Channing's 
Views.— .Tadcson^s position in ISOG.— //e acts as Burr's Agent.— Burr's 
attempt to Dis.solve the Union.— McDvffie's Effort.— The True Policy of this 
Jlepublic. — Jackson and Van Buren Buying Texas.— Hamilton on Burr. — 
Burr kills him.— Enters into Arrangemhits with Pitt.— Burr's Family.— 
Judge Marshall on Blennerhassett. — Wilkinson'' s Testimoiiy.—Vavezac's Ar- 
rest. The Day tons of New Jersey. — Fraiik Ogden. — Sedgivick on Texas. — 

Texas, how Settled. — Its Convention. — (Planning on Slavery — Van B men's 
Instructions to the Mexican Minister, in lS29.—Be7ievolence and Disinterest- 
edness of the E. S. Government. — A Curious Argument. — Gaines Invades 
Mexico. — Senator Houston. — Calhoun's Opinions on Slavery.— His Letters 
to King and Wilson Shannon.— Canada, a Refuge for the Oppressed Slave. -- 
Southern Policy Disclosed by a Candid Minister to Mexico.— On Extending 
the Area of Oppression.— I'Jou^ to Raise the Price of Virginia Negroes.— 
Murphy's Hint to Play the Hi/pocrite.— Our Treaty with the Mexicans.— The 
Destiny of the Americans.— Public Life.— Notional Purity. 

Andrew Jackson was first nominated as President of the United States, by 
Aaron Burr. Col. Burr's letter, with his reasons for preferring Jackson, was 
addressed to Governor Alston, as early as 1815, and will be found among the 
correspondence. I have seen it stated, but not on any specific authority, that 



POLK'S INAUGURAL. MEXICO, SLAVERY AND TEXAS. 59 

Burr's arguments in favor of Jackson had great influence over Van Buren^ 
mind when he became his adherent. Unquestionably, the popularitv of Gen. 
Jackson was the leading inducement. We shall find that Burr and Jackson's 
vfewsfo conquering Mexico from Spain, in 1S05, have been since earned ou 
'n part, by r Texas movement of Polk,* Van Buren, Jaclcson, Calhoun, and 

Trhe violent dismemberment of Mexico by citizens of the United States, with a view to 
the rS awSmentof slavery m Texas ; and the very rp^f'^kablecxrcumstances attending iU 
ecent annexation to this Union, in violation of good taith to a friendly republic ; ^v'lth the 
ISteotfeelS to which these events, and their expected results, have giveii rise form some 
SdooVfoi brief notices of the various parts plaved in the exciting drama, by Messrs. Polk, 
?an BTirei Ben on, flouston, Jackson, Burr, Swartwout, and their Iriends or contederates 
James I&ox Polk took the oath of office at the Capitol, as President, on Tuesday, Match 4th, 

^'S'm: SulS^^Ki'i^Sis-d a deep regret that " misguided persons" hadindul^d 
in schemes and agitations " whose object is the destruction ot domestic institution., existing 
n cenaS Sates or sections' '-and thought that all must see that ii these pei-sons could succeed 
" the (Ussoiution of the Union" must speedilv follow. " To increase the atfach^memol our 
people tol? Union (said he) OUR LaVs SHOULD BE JUST. A^^ 
^MATT TEND TO FAVOR MONOPOLIES, OR THE PECULIAR IN 1 ti-±ii^& i » 
OP SECTIONS OR CLASSES, must operate to the prejudice of the interests ot their tellow- 
citizens and SHOULD BE AVOIDED." It would be his aim "to observe a careful re.pect 
for the ri-hts of oYher nations," and "none could fail to see the danger to our safety and future 
neace f Texas i-emains an independent state." " Our title ro the country of the Oregon is 
K AND UNGLUESTIONABLE." The President - fervemly invoked tlie aid ot the A!- 
mi^htv Ruler olX Universe, to guard this heaven-favored land against the mischiefs wnich 
I'lK^Sfliom an unwise' public policv." "With a firm reliance upon the wisdom ot 
SISnipotence to sustain and direct him in the path of duty which he had been appomted to 
pursue," he stood there to take the oath, &e. 

O '. what is worth made for, if 'tis not the same, 
Thro' joy and thro' torment— thro' glory and shame. 
Mr Polk thought that the laws should be just and free from monopoly, and that there was 
noSin- wrong in one man with a white skin, possessing a life lease of the labor of many 
families of his fellow creatures whose skins were more or less tinged witn black— no harm m 
huvin-"them-selling them-separating the husband from the wife, the sister from the brother, 
thiparem from the child-keeping them in poverty', misery, and brutal ignorance aii^se.-erely 
nunishin- him or her who would ve-ture to teach them to read and write— tlxie was no 
Lnopolv in all that, nothing unjust- o, nor in annexing Texas ^^^ P^^f J^i^-^jTfg^'^ 
renublic" simply because that repui.hc was weaker— and he invoked the aid oi Almighty Lxoa 
to enable him to preserve the Union, through the continuance of this descrmionot aemocratic 
iu^tice- and had a firm reliance upon the wisdom of Omnipotence to aid Mm in having every 
free black driven out of the new addition of the "heaven-favored land called Texas and 
slavery and a monopoly of the slave-trade upheld there, which he consi'dered very essential '-to 
our safety and future peace." Had the Baltunore Convention nominated Benjamin Franklin 
Butler ^^^en they pitched upon a pious Tennessee lawyer, he c.^kl not have performed his 
pan more in character. When defending his friend Jacob Barker, in an indictment for fraud, 
Benjamin told the comt and jury that the Lord, in his go^d P^^^^f f ^. J^f^^^^^'^.^Jf X'." 
Jacob's trade and blessed it; Jacob's occuaption, thus especially sanctified, bemg tha.of a Wall 
Street stockjobber ! I should not feel at all surprised, if i^' were to turn out that Benjamin, who 
5^ometimes penned protests and messages for Jackson ^nd Van Buren, should prove to have 
been the author of this unique inaugural of James Knox Polk. It denounces defaulters, and 
E deputed compiler has siiie proved his sincerity m the cause of regular accountants by em- 
ploying in the highest pecuniary trusts the very punctual R. J. "Walker, our defaulting bank 
president C. W. La^vrence, with the aforesai.^ Benjamm and such like. It is to be doubted 
whether he had "the wisdom of Omnipotence to sustain and direct him" in these and some 
Jt er acts of his, done after the fashion of Charles I., delender of the faith, &c., &?• When 
Geie III. seized the Danish fleet, and Kvmbarded Copenhagen, the capital of his fai hfu a ly, 
i^ 1807 his excuse for the robbery wa., that the fleet, if he did not seize i, might f«'l /^ito the 
hands of France. President Polk fiids an argument for the annexation ol Texas, in tins, that 
if the slave States did not seize upon it to be used as a negi-o pen, England might influence the 
Texans todoas Mexico had done, crush slave-dri^^ng and slave-work-mg there altoge her ! Being 
myself a native of Scotland, and Robert Dale Owen the annexationist, an Enghshman, I beg 
th'at my humble strictures upon President Polk's piety and politics may be taken as a sort ol 
set off against the powerful harangues and steady votes ot the Indiana philosopher, Ui fa\ or of 



BURR, BLENNEilHASSETr, JaCKSON AND THE DONS. 

Houston. By reference to the annexed correspondence, it will be seen that 
Samuel Swartwout, who was an active canvasser for Jackson, in New Jersey, 
as early as 1823, expended large sums in Texan lands, sent settlers there, kept 
up a correspondence with Houston and the Texan malcontents, and with Major 
Neville, an old associate of Burr's, interested himself deeply in the Texan 
trade, and was looked up to by young Blennerhassett as a friend, and 
the friend of his father. Swartwout's connection with Burr, Blennerhassett, 
and the attempt on Mexico, in 1805-fi, is matter of history. As an illus- 
tration of the life and times of Van Buren, and showing what his course has 
been, 1 have appended as a note,* a brief sketch of the origin and progress of 

increasing the domain of human bondage and suffering in the South, as a means of decreasing 
it in the North— and who consoles " his excellency" by the assurance that " Slaver}', like 
Monarchy, is a temporary evil, which will disappear when it becomes commercially unprofi- 
table !" or in other words, that Mr. Polk will discontinue selling his Tennessee negroes when 
he can find no one to buy them from him ! ! The President's well-written message to Con- 
gress, when they met last, would be amusing, were it not a burlesque upon the great principles 
of the Declaration ot Independence, and a practical defiance of the cardinal doctrines of that 
glorious manifesto, yet to be honored in more auspicious times. Am I too sanguine ] 

I hear from youth, ' Man's prospects daily brighten : 

Each files his fetters surely, silently ; 

The Press illumines, and the gas enlightens ; 

The glorious steamboat speeds across the sea : 

Another twenty years, and then — and then — 

A sunbeam shall the lovely germ imfold.' 

Oh ! I have waited thirty years in vain — 

Enough, enough — the world is all too old ! 

Bbrangek, 

* ya a Wtter to Grovemor Claiborne, of Louisiana, dated Nov. 12, 1806, General Jackson 
eays :— " Be on the alert, keep a watchful eye upon our General [Wilkinson], and beware of 
an attack [on New Orleans], as well from our own country as Spam. You have enemies within 
your own city that may try to separate it from the Union. You know I never hazard ideas 
withotji good ground. ... Be on the alert. Your government [Louisiana], I fear, is in danger. 
I fear there are plans afoot inimical to the Union. ... I love my country and government ■ I 
HATE THE DONS : I WOULD LIKE TO SEE MEXICO REDUCED : but 1 will 
die in the last ditch before I would yield a foot to the Dons, or see the Union reduced." Next 
Jan. 3, Jefferson, who had perfect confidence in Wilkinson, wrote to him, with instructions 
how to arrest Borr's movements, and added, " If everything from that place (Louisville) be 
successfully arrested, there is nothing Irom below that is to be feared. Be assured that Ten- 
nessee, and particularly General Jackson, are faithful." 

General Jackson adinits here his hatred of the Spanish in Mexico, and his earnest desire to 
see it reduced. He retained the friendship of Burr to the day of his deatli ; was his general 
agent in Tennessee in ISOC and 1807, and received large .sums of money from him for the use 
of that agency. Burr, whei. in Tennessee, was often at Jackson's, who introduced him for- 
mally at a ball in Nashville, \he night before he sailed with his recruits and boats from tlie 
mouth of the Cumberland River, when he took with him Stokely Hays, his (Jackson's) ne- 
phew. When, months after, the press and the government had noticed Bmrs course, then, 
but not sooner, did Jackson write to Claiborne, whose suspicions he directed asahist Wilkin- 
son, and not against Djirr. That he had no wish to dismember this Union, I believe ; but as to 
his being free from the knowledge of b-irr's plans for invading Mexico, 1 see no reason to 
think that he was so. His anxiety to brean up and dismember that Roman Catholic country, 
appears to have continued to the last houi of his life. It was Wilkinson's letter to Jef- 
ferson, Nov. 25th, that enabled him to comprehend Purr's designs, viz., the severance of tlie 
Uni'^n by the Alleghany Mountains, and the coinuest of Mexico. A committee in Tennes- 
see, jn which were W. E. Lewis, John Overton, R. C. Foster, John Shelby, Th. Claiborne, 
and k lers, met in 1828 to take evidence and report or. the natme of Jackson's connection with 
Biir> In General John Coffee's letter to them, August 28, he says, that Buit was in Tennes- 
see lu 1605 and in 180G — that he wrote aftei-wards that there would be war with Spain, in 
which case Jeflerson was to give him the command of at. expedition against Mexico— that 
Bu't j 'nt $3,500 to Jackson, which, with other S'500, were placed in his (Coffee's) hand«, to 
bui 1 i> id purchase six boats, and lay in provisions. That suspicions afterwards arose tJiat all 
vai a t right, and in December, 1806, the balance was handed to Burr, in Tennessee— that 
tJuTi WM coargeU by Jackson with improper views, which he denied, and that then Jackson 



MCDtFFIE ON DISSOLVING THE UNION. BURR AND JACKSON. 61 

the dismemberment of a weak power, by the force and fraud of a strono- one. 
The truly great and good Dr. Channing, in his letter to Clay on Texas, appre- 
hended that its incorporation with the Union would prove a deep injury to these 

gave hiin a letter to Gov. Claiborne, and sent his nephew with him. Judge Williams stated 
to the committee, that in the spring or fall of 1806, Jackson spoke to him about a commission 
in Burr's army, adding, " When 1 recollect that the destruction of American institutions was 
the object ot the Burr conspiracy, and that General Jackson was in the possession of facts 
and circumstances which would have convicted tlie conspirators, and yet improijcrly with- 
held them when summoned to Richmond to give his testimony," &c. He also wrote to Tack'=on 
as to what he had written, that while Burr or Adair, or both, were at Jackson's house he fthe 
general) told him (Williams) and others—" Take notice, gentlemen, you will lind that a 
division of the United States has taken deep root ; you will j&nd that a number of tlie Senate 
and a number of the members of the House of Representatives, are deeply involved in the 
scheme." 

How often, in the history of this country, do we see anxious wishes expressed for a disso- 
lution ot the Union ! Burr tried to dissolve it— the men of the East, whom Adams could not 
be brought to act with, tried to dissolve it— the abolitionists of the East complain of it now 
—and how often have Governor McDuffie and others of South Carolina sio-hed after more 
southern territory, as a means of ruling the Union, or splitting it up ! in the South Caroli- 
nian of Feb. 8, 1844, I find McDuffic's speech in the Senate of the 19th of January, in whicTi 
he calculat&s the value of this great and glorious confederacy of states by dollars and cents 
thus :— " Sir, ever since the tariff of 1828, I have regarded the exporting, the slave states of 
this Union, as being practically reduced to a state of colonial vassalasre to the manufacturin'r 
states. It -IS a much more oppressive state oftrihdary dependence than thatwhichonce bound u^s 
to Great Britain. ... I can solemnly declare, as a citizen of South Carolina, that in nearly 
a quarter ot a century I have never felt this government [that of the U. S.l but \w its op- 
prc-'^sions." Governor McjDuffie, in 1844, h&sitated not to state, in Senate, a Droject to 
divide the United States into three confederations, and to calculate by dollars 'and'ccnts tlie 
advantages of his scheme. Like his friend Van Buren, he was a warm supporter of Polk 
for President ; and so were Jackson, Calhoun, and others, who, like McDuffie, considered the 
bondage of tlie kidnapped African the corner-stone of democratic institutions' 
In Gen. Jackson's letter to G. W. Campbell, Jan. 15, 1807, he states, that on Nov lOth 

1806, Capt. called at his house, and told him that the adventurers intended to divide the 

Union, " by seizing New Orleans and the Bank, shutting the port, conquering Mexico and 

uniting the western parts of the Union to the conquered country"— that , of N y' had 

told him so— that knowing tliat Burr was well acquainted witli ■ — " it rushed into his 

mind like lightning that Burr was at the head"— that he wrote to Biut that he suspected him 
and then to Governor Claiborne, but without warning him of Burr— that Burr denied the 
charge of intending to .split up the Union, but not a word is said as to invadin'^ Mexico It 
was after this November conversation that Jackson was most intin?ate with Burr introduced 
hira at the ball, even after Jefferson's proclamation, and sent his nephew vnth him who left 
him, as he tells the committee, at the mouth of Bayou Pierre. Willis Alston stated' that Jef- 
ferson had told him that Jackson had written to him that he " had been tendered a hi-^-h com 
mand by BuiY," and had tendered his services " TO MAKE A DESCENT UPON MEXICO " 
Is it not remarkable that Jackson, though in attendance at Burr's trial before Judge Marshall 
was not examined 1 He promises Campbell, that " in a few weeks he would give the proof " 
When did he do it ? o i- • 

The true course for this republic, in its dealings with Mexico, would have been to be gen'^- 
rous and liberal to a people struggling for freedom, but without enough of intelligence to 
secure and maintain it in quietness. The independence of Mexico was acknowledged at 
Wasnmgton while she was in the midst of a revolution— and distracted with faction harassed 
by wars with Spain and France, troubled with domestic revolts, some of them caused by 
Americans, encouraged, as I .shall shov/, by official men here : who could expect that the U S 
commerce would not suffer injury % The Sabine river, fcc, formed the western boundary of 
the Union, as settled in 1819 with Spain, and in 1828 with Mexico— vet scarcelv was Jackson 
seated m the chair of Washington, than, in August, 1829, he offeredMexico five millions of 
dollars for Texas, and again, in 1835, he ordered the offer to be repeated. In 1837 Congress 
declared Texas independent, and in 1845, added that fine province of Mexico to the' Union as 
a new State, confirming and restoring perpetual slavery throughout a territory of 400 000 
square miles, from which Catholic Mexico had banished it 21 years before ' ' 

.J^^- ^^^"^h i^ ?'^ ^P"^^*^^ '" Congxess, April 15, 1842, speaking of the Mexican treaty qC 
lt«8 said : I had myself, m the negotiation of our treaty with Spain, labored to get the Rio 
del Norte as our boundary ; and I adhered to the demand till Mr. Monroe and all his cabinet 
idirected me to forego it, and to assent to take the Sabine. Be/are the treaty icas signed, it was 



62 AARON BURR. PLAN TO SEIZE NEW ORLEANS. SWARTWOUT. 

States It will not stand alone, he says,-it will involve us in European wars. 
"It will darken our future history. It will be linked by an iron necessity to 
lonl continued deeds of rapine and blood. Ages may not see the catas rophe 
of the tragedy, the fir-^t scene of which we are so ready to enact. Of all pre- 

~^d by ^nc at the commoMd of Mr. Monroe, to General Jacicson, who, after cxa'mmmg it mth 
pohucs, because, ^uJV .m ' ,in n '^ 5^^ president, " would be restrained by no moral .scru- 
""ll ■ S'Vw Bri i a d fa ed'n'^hfi plans, and removed for fom- yean .o Eru-ope Co!. 

Sf;?a.ti^"h\..n:d?e™'rdltL«J^;|L!.^rofeT\l>edeaa^ 
■»T;v^rBSJ'^Si.1.S-^«erK.fa.her,^^^ 

Newark, IN. J., i?eli. b J iJO. ."-^^ "^'"'=' .. . xt„ marriod Mr^ Prevost, the widow ol a 

;;;s„eX^ss£iS^3;a|.._ai^^ 

pany ma, e Inm ^^^^^^ ", Te c„ e""»" "< N' ^'- ^'»"= '° "'"'■■"'' "'f «»""'■»'■""■ 
aSbecanle Vi' e PrSeS. 01 .he Union, u-ith Jefferson. His appearance and manners are 

-g'"JTs;sri'^nr,:.;^ri-i.-™eS»d^ 
sv,r'irsS'ShaSi''pSZar;i;o.r^^^^^^^^ 

Cuslnn^ »'«:^,-',^' ,;,"':, ate « ih is momenl Lssoc'iawl liir purposes nuimeal 

c-.iri " Are vou read V— are. vour numerous a.ssociales umU} ! vvcaiui duu umi^ 



THK DAYTONS. sEDUWlCK. CHANNIJVG. TKXAN AVARICi'.. 03 

cipitate and criminal deeds^ those perpetrated bv nations are the most fruitful 
of misery." 

" We are a restless people, [continues this eminent philosopher,] prone to 
encroachment, impatient of the ordinary laws of progress, less anxious to con- 
mission ; he is couraqrooas ; inimical to Eng-land ; true to Van Buren. He was an aid to 
Jarkson at New Orleans — his sister married Edwaid Livingston, of Louisiana, Jacksou's 
vrnnil Secretary oi' State. 

General Jonatlian Dayton, of New Jersey, was indicted ibr treason, and, .say.s the Baltimore 
American, •' The Attorney for the United States had no doubt that Dayton was leagued in the 
general conspiracy :" hui on the 1 jrli of Sejitember. 1HU7, Dayton was aischargcd. fis this the 
Dayton who, in 17H7, aided in iVaminir ihe U. S. constitution, and was Sj-eakcrof the H. of k. 
in t^onsress, for four years ]J On the 1st of September, lK-<?4, we find a Jackson meeting held 
in New- York — Col. Swartwout, chairman. Aaron Oirden Dayton, secretary. Whether "the 
.scramble for plunder" described by Swart wont to Hoyt, realized the apprehensions of Hamilton, 
of a president who would "employ the i-oirues of all parlies," the reader of Van Bnren's and 
Butler's lives must jud^e for himself Swartwout, and others, seern to have had thai apprehen- 
sion. Was the Frank Osrden, whose appointment to the :5:-20,Oi.!G a )'ear, or at least very rich 
offii-e of the Consulate to Liverpool, dro\ e poor Coddinsrion to the very verj^v of revolt, (see pasre 
213.) one of these New-Jer.sey Osdeiis, «hose names were a^^sociated witli Burr's ivaa Jackson's 
in the romantic adventures of IHOti-T ? 

" The settlement of Te.xas, ' says Theodore Sedgwick, (as Veto, in the New- York Evening 
Post,) " be?an in land speculation ; it was marked in its course by abominable frauds, and one 
of the great causes of dissatisfaction was the absolute prohibition or' negro slaveiy. The fir.'t 
settlers of Texas, for the mere love of gain, abandoned a free republic for a colonial destiny. 
Protestants, they transferred themselves to catholic rule. The Texans [liom tiie United State.-] 
must have been insane, if, on enii-ring M3xieo, they looked for an aduiinislration as laulile^.-- 
as that under whicli they had lived. Tney migiit with equal reason have planted themselves 
in Russia, and then have unfurled the banner of independence near the throne of the Czar, be- 
cause denied Ihe immunities of iheir native land.'' The Union- .gives an account of the Ouii- 
vention to frame a Constitution for Texas, consi.scing oi' one Texan, thiee New-Englander , 
one Englishman, three from Ohio and Pennsylvania, and all the others (tlfty-ibm") irom the 
slave states. Fannin wrote from the Alamo, just before its capture ," In my last, 1 informed 
you that I could find but some half a dozen citizens in my ranks, and I regret to say that it is 
yet the case." 

Dr. Channing, in his letter on Texas, addressed, in 1S38, to Henry Clay, truly remarks, that 
Texas was not conquered by its colonists — that in the army of eigiit hundred who took Saiita 
Anna prisoner, not more than fifty were citizens of Texas — the rest were selfish adventurers 
from ttds Union. That land speculators, slave-holders, and such men as these, were among 
the foremo.st to proclaim independence ; and that Yankee speculatois introduced .'lavery in 
the.se fair lands, from which the countrymen of Cortez and Pizairo had expelled it. JVlex- 
ico, at the moment of throwing oft' liie Sjiaiiish yoke, gave a noble te,stinioiiy of her ioyaliy to 
free principles, by decreeing, 'tltat no person thereafter should be born a slave, or introduced 
as such into the Mexican .states ; that all slaves then held, should receive stipulated wages, ar.d 
be subject to no punishment but on trial anit judgment by the magistrate.' The subsequent 
acts of the government carried out fully these constitutional provisions. It is matter of deep 
grief and humiliation, that the emigrant.^ from this country, whilst boa.s-ting of superior civiU 
isation, refused to second this honorable pulicy, intended to set limits to one of the greatest 
social evils. .Slaves were brought into Texas, with their rna.sters, from the neighboring states 
of this coimtry. One mode of evading the laws wa«, to introduce slaves under lormal inden- 
tures for long periods — in some cases, it is said, for ninety-nine years. By a decree of the 
State Legislature of Coahuila and Texas, all indentures for a longer period than ten years were 
annulled, and provision was made for the Ireedom of children born during this apprenticeship. 
This settled, invincible purpose of Mexico to exclude slavery from her limits, created as strong 
a purpose to aimihilate her authority in Texas. By this 'prohibition, Texas v,-as effectually 
closed against emigration from the southern and western portions of this counn-y : and it is well 
known that the eyes of the soutli and west had tor some time been rarned lo this province, as a 
new market for slaves, as a new field for slave-lalx'r, and as a va-st accession of political power 
to the slaveholding .states. That .such views vv^ere prevalent, we know ; for, nefarious as diev 
are, they found their way into the public prints. The project of dismembering a neighboring 
republic, that slaveholders and slaves might overspread a region Vvdiich had Ix-en consecrated to 
a free population, was discussed in newspapers as coolly as if it were a matter of obvious right. 
and unquestionable humanity." 

I have never hesitated to believe, that Van Buren, in his Texas letter, -written before the Bal- 
timore selection, was as little impelled by raauly pririciple as I have :^tiov>^l hioi to have beea 



64 VAN BUREN AND JACKSON's MEXICAN POLICY. CALHOUn's PHILOSOPHY* 

solidate and perfect, than to extend our institutions, more ambitious of spreading 
ourselves over a wide space, than of diffusing beauty and fruitfulness over a 
narrow field. We boast of our I'apid growth, forgetting that, throughout nature, 
noble growths are slow. Our people throw themselves beyond the bounds of 



in other important acts of his life. On the 16th of October, 1829, when Secretary to Jackson, 
he addressed a long letter to Anthony Butler, the United States Charge in Mexico, containing 
the President's instructions to him as the successor of Poinsett. A^an Buren describes the con- 
duct of Mexico as unfriendly and undeserved, and hopes she will become sensible of the injus- 
tice she has done to this country, " her earliest and best friend." He says that Jackson thought 
that the true interests of this Union wouJd be better promoted by Mexican glory and pro.sperily, 
tlian by her depression and disgrace — that the bearing of Jackson's government had been " libe- 
ral Encl magnanimous" towards the Mexicans, "while many of their citizens, voluniary exiles 
in the cause of American libertv, fought by the side of their Mexican friends, TO EXPEL 
FROM THIS CONTINENT THE LAST REMNANTS OF COLONIAL OPPRES- 
SION— that every step taken since, by the United States, has been marked by " benevolence 
and disinterestedness"— but that the Mexican govermnent had been guilty of " political per- 
verseness and inattention," and of " persevering injustice." This benevolence of Jackson and 
Van Bm-en had been evidenced in Swartwout, Houston, Poinsett, and others, stirring up strife 
in Mexico ; and by asking Mexico to sell some 400,000 square miles of her territoiy for the 
use of the slave-holders, because she was poor— and this, too, for a pecuniaiy consideration ! 
Van Bui-en tells Mexico that she is " shut out from almost all commtmication with the sea- 
board," and then complains of the "abortive attempts to negotiate with" her — the main object of 
the negotiation being to deprive her of the very domain which communicates with the sea, by 
hectoring, bullying, and menacing her. Dr. Mayo's comments on Van Buren, in his " Eight 
Years in Wa.shington," touch this sore point skilfully. " The idea of military invasion of the 
Mexican territory has never entered infc the imagination of the United States, nor, is it believed, 
of any one of their citizens." Hovi' long after that was it to the time when J ackson and his party 
ordered Gen. Gaines to invade ::\lexico, in the midst of peace, and the General addressed the 
ex-m.inister, Poinsett : " If I am permitted to make an arrangement in accordance with the fore- 
going sug^e.stions, I feel confident that I can thereby obtain, and call to the frontier, READY 
FOR AN ACTIVE CAMPAIGN TO THE CITY OF MEXICO, from fifty to one hundred 
thousand first rate men, for the most part mounted, before the first day of October next, the time 
they should march westAvard from the Sabine"?" One would think that Van Bmen believed 
he "had in hand a second edition of the Peter Allen case, of I8l(j, in which his confede- 
rates in the legislature, voted in the appointing power of the state, by a false majority of one, 
knowing it to be so; and then, by the virtue ofllieir oaths, placed this majority of one into the 
hands of their def\-anded opponents. The hostile movements of savage tribes was given as one 
reason for the " benevolent and disinterested" invasion by Gaines. And who set on these 
tribes 1 What Governor of Teiinessee was it that left his wife and white family, to marry tlie 
daughter of an Indian Chief, discard the robes of civilisation, Im-n savage, and be ready, when 
the revolt was matured, to head the adventurers shipped from New-York and New-Orleans, 
and who composed the €lite of the army of Texas 1 

I have been a warm admirer ol' Jolin C. Calhoun. His superior powers of intellect, great 
experience, and real liberality in many respects, gave ground for good hope that, as Secretary 
of State to John Tyler, he would prove that he had a noble soul by some honest and able 
stroke of statesmanship— add Texas to the Union, but not as a slave mart, nor by insulting 
Mexico— and exhibit a feeling in favor of the oppressed classes of society, whether white or 
black. Mr. Calhoun had but one end and aim in accepting a seat in the cabinet— the delence 
of the negro-driver's whip, and increasing to the greatest possible extent tlie market for those 
who raise slaves for sale, as we noitherners raise black cattle. Nullification in 1832 might 
plead as a defence an oppressive taxation or an unequal tarift', but Calhoun's statc-^manshi]), 
in 1844, exhibited a far worse sort of nullification, the might of the executive of the Union 
stretched to its vcrv tttmost to strengthen and consolidate the combined slave owners of the 
south as TI7K permanent and omnipotent element of strength, the great ruling power on ihis 
continent, with the breeding, trading and working of human beings, as if they were property, 
chattels, horses, aisses, mules or oxen, beasts of burthen. When 1 read Calhoun's letter to 
King at Paris, where he tells him that the British people had paid a hundred millions of dol- 
lars to compensate slave owners in the West Indies for freeiii^-- their slaves— paid other fitly 
millions extra for su?ar. the product of free labor— paid another hundred millions towards the 
suppression of the detestable system of kidnapping and selling heathen Africans to Christian 
receivers, and that their capital, vested in tropical possessions, was at the brink of ruin , thi'ough 
these stupendous exeitions towards bringing about that millenium of justice and miiversal 
kindness foretold in the Bible — when 1 saw him sit down to calculate the gains of his system 
of coercion, and try to excite ill feelings towards England in tjte minds of the French, to pro- 



WHEN SHALL THE FLAG OP THE FREE WAVE OVER TEXAS ? 65 

civilisation, and expose themselves to relapses into a semi-barbarous state, 
under the impulse of wild imagination, and for the name of great possessions. 
Perhaps there is no people on earth, on whom the ties of local attachment sit 
so loosely. Even the wandering tribes of Scythia are bound to one spot, the 



phecy that itntbrgiving hate and deadly revenge would be the inevitable result of a system of 
ivindness and compassion towards those whom, during eighteen centuries, white men have 
treated cruelly, and talk of cheap staples gained by flogging work out of God's creatures, I reluc- 
tantly gave him up, as 1 had given up Van Buren, with whom he may yet again, as he has twice 
already, coalesce. In his letter to Wilson Shannon, his envoy-EXTRAORDlN ARY, as he sm-ely 
was, he iirst gives as a reason for annexing Texas, that Mexico was not trying to recover it — ancl 
next, that it would be altogether vial apropos, and quite oflensive to this Union, were Mexico 
to try to recover Texas while annexation was pending ! Callioun was the first who made me 
ashamed of the part I had taken in Canada. 1 had endeavored, as it seemed, to place Canada 
in the hands of ihe slaveholder, in order that no place of refuge might remain in the land of 
Jefferson and Franklin, for an oppressed race, on this side the grave — and this, too, while 
catholic MEXICO and protestant Britain — the methodist, baptist, episcopalian, quaker, Ro- 
man catholic, independent and presbyterian of England and Ireland were cheerfully submit- 
ting to enormous taxation and great privations to raise the African in the scale of civilisation ! 

The Ex-Governor of free Ohio, His Excellency Wilson Shannon, to wit, cut a most deplora- 
ble iigm-e in Mexico. Senor Rejon, the Mexican minister, told him, Oc":. 31, 1844, that "in 
the declaration and act of independence of Texas, those who figured as the leaders were 
almost all from the United States, as were also the general and others who composed the 
army that fought imder the standard of Texas in the battle of San Jacinto; and In many 
parts of the United States meetings were held publicly to provide, and they did actually pro- 
vide, men, arms, ammunition, and other warlike stores. It has since clearly appeared that the 
point aimed at was to separate that rich and extensive territory from the power of its legitimate 
sovereign in order to annex it to the United States; a measure of policy which, as it is ex- 
pressly said in the note of his Excellency Mr. Shannon, ' HAS BEEN LONG CHERISHED, 
AND BELIEVED INDISPENSABLE FOR THE SAFETY AND WELFARE OF THE 
UNITED STATES, AND WHICH, FOR THESE REASONS, HAS BEEN INVARIA- 
BLY PURSUED BY ALL PARTIES OP THAT REPUBLIC, AND BY ALL ADMINIS- 
TRATIONS FOR THE LAST TWENTY YEARS.' " 

Wnat a confession ! Does it not show, asked Rejon, " that the declaration of independence 
by Texas, and the demand of its annexation to the United States, are the work of the govern- 
ment of the citizens of the latter, being interested in making this acquisition, which thevhave 
considered, for the last twenty years, indispensable for the safety and welfare of their republic 1" 
" The citizens of the United States who proclaimed the annexation of Texas, with the excep- 
tion, perhaps, of the first colonists, went there, not to remain subject to the Mexican Republic, 
but to annex it to their country ; strengthening, by these means, the peculiar institittions of 
the southern states, and opening a new field for the execrable system of negro slavery." " If 
[tlie U. S.] aspires to find more land to stain with the slavery of an unlucky branch of the 
liuman family, [Mexico] strives, by preserving what is its own," to diminish the aliment which 
the former desires for so detestable a traffic." 

I am no abolitionist — that is, I would not compel, or attempt to coerce states or nations who 
encourage domestic slavery, to change their policy — though I might reason with them if per- 
mitted — but I cannot forego the pleasm-e ot condemning the avarice which seeks Texas as a 
monopoly market for the slaves her planters breed for traflie. Benjamin Lundy tells us, that 
'■ h\ tne Virginia Convention of 1829, Judge Upshur, of the Superior Court, observed, in a 
speech of considerable length, that if Texas should be obtained, which he strongly desired it 
would raise the price of slaves, and be a great advantage to the slaveholders in that state. Mr. 
Gholson also stated, in the Virginia Assembly, in the year 1832, that the price of slaves fell 
twenty-five per cent, within two hours after the news was received of the non-importation act 
which was passed by the legislatuie of Louisiana. Yet he believed the acquisition of Texas 
would raise their price fifty per cent, at lea.st." 

Calhoun is frank — he has nothing of tlie fox or weasel in him, as he said of Van Buren 
oaca, and migiit have added of Butler also. 1 like him for that. Instead of taking Murphy, oitr 
Texan diplomatist's hint, not to " offend our fanatical brethren of the north — talk about c'ivil. 
political, and religious liberty, say nothing about abolition — this will be found the safest issui^ iu 
g-o before the world with" — instead of cant and hypocrisy he plainly tells Pakcnham, the Er."-- 
lish envoy, in lais capacity of secretary for the republic, April 18, 1814, that "th.\t which °s 

CALLED SLAVERY IS LM REALITY A POLITICAL INSTITUTION ESSENTIAL TO TUE PEACE, SAFETY AKD 

PROSPERITY or THOSE STATES IN WHICH IT EXISTS." In Other words, Texas is annexed, in order 
that tlie bondage of the African race may be made perpetual. Can this be the language, this 
the policy, this the judgment of the first free government in the world] If not, wherein do 



H Airmrp BFSTINY OF SONS OF THE PILGRIMS. 
66 LOVE ONE ANOTHER. NOULK DESTINV Ui- 

The known and famihar is °^^^7\^f ^^^''"^'^.^d desired because belonging to 
sometimes the untrodden.. sno^^ ^^^^^^^ ^,^^^ ^en, who left 

others. V\e owe this spirt in ^ measure , • j f^^, ^ wilderness, and 

the old world for the new the seals of ^"^^^f/^^^^'^J^^'t, ,f the soil. To this 
^vho advanced by driving beiore ^^em 4he o d occup^^^^^^ ascendency, the 

r:r:^th- ^;;"ir::etS^^ ^hlch eon.muni.es 

grown grey in corruption might blush." 

CHAPTER X V 11 . 

Farewell to the land where in cliildhood I wandered, 
Tv, ^-aiii is she iniffhtv, in vain is she brave ; 

[T". 'S. Senate. • i r . 

C^o.axK0.s reader, had you ever a thorn m your ^1 J^r. in tlie fco. 

aftbrds an excellent ^'l-^-^^ • , ^K po ti^ n t^ /^ 

foreign substance may f ;;;;^^^;^^'^K'uP^n 2> enrol among its principles 
it the part ot ^-^-^^"^/"'^^^^"n^fj .^^/^/'l'^ , commercial country there always 
the political proscription ot loreigners . m 

- , , r. n „,.„ 9 '^ TlKM-e ^hall be a lirm, inviolable and 

Polk and Walker difil-r from ^?f "^f"^',^"^ between'the United States of Amencu 
universal P^^f'^^^'''^,'^"^ Teace S Mendship and sincerity are notnowsoved 

iJSoSri;r^SSc^"^^r'^^ '^^ asks Channm. or Cy. 

Whv cannot we rise to noble coiicepao.oou ly^^u^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^ 

.. Whv do we not feel that our ^^J^^^^^ ai Jl whv do we no. remember, thai to diffti.. 
nobler form ol human nature over this continent ^ni a m ^ j whatever deeply and 

ese be sings we must first cherish t'^-''^;" ''^r'^^Xie ^^ not a blessing. tothiMiew 

pSmanently^cormpts us will make ^^;;^^ ^f ;| f ^^b si' principles of human nature. U 
w..rld ? Public lite appeals to the n"blest. as ^ ei ^ j ^^^i, „ 1,0,,,.. By giynt; 

holds UP for pursuit enduring fame, as ^\ell -^^ f notoi.e^N^^ i ^ ,,^,j^ ^.^.^^^^^ ^ jg^p 

^^t^Lie. Sf acting on the va^^ and S5S,r"Thl 'eU mU tai-h in human nature 
sense of respoasibilitv. and a geneious ^^''-'^\\' );, 7;,^,.;' ^ ^n anv class ..f men, especially on 
S;Sust tSe infl;^--;^f ^-i;"^!^S:!f ^f UgenSu? Sween vast pcuvers of thought 
men of commanding intelligence, i hue i a c ^ ■ „,emselves as those who hnu- 

and di-aitv of purpose. None are >,o ^^^^ '^J;, ^ ,,' „,.eaiest oflerines to humamty. With 
mit tS sacrifice, who, in f '^"ngj]'^"^^\^ f^" ^ictpa ed"^ ni^^ and scoffs of those, who will 
this conviction, I am not discourage b '1^^ ^nt'C'PJ.^, condition of freedom and greatness, I 
think that in insisting on national pin '^ .^^^ ^^^.^^^'^ ^^^ ,„ empty name, nor will a measm-. 
!-if:^!!:Sfl'^i;;:fS;ii.io^:m:Ui'-^ '^ ^™ anythmgbu,af..- 



Irauglu with lasting corruption 



lul calamity." ^ . , . , .. .,. „, , „^^-,iiej ;, ,„ Calhoun, in the sense that its excellent 
flow often have T read this lettei aiut api i et i ^^ clearness ot lus miel- 

au 1 or applied it to Clay ! .1 ^>» "^''^-'''^'i ;;7.\ ,e* , L 1^^^^ control the republ c now 
le.-,t, but 'the .-luiracter ol h>^"'''';\'';'. .,.':^'^^^^^^^^^^ bv Auglo-Sn.xon cupidity on 

'ior ever,.through d^e voU;^^ At ^ati i nc^rm^^^^^^^^^^^ P ^^.^^^^^^.^^ ^. ,„, ,,,,,,, „ ,he nieycy o^ 



r o;,; ;? Congress-who would pVj^e tlJI^JlJ^S a .^ -', '-i^;, .vorse.) by progressive 
;;;:.SJ^:^^-^rS^;;Sl ^rH^^ of his^ry . a wise state.man 1 



ADOPTED CITIZENS. MARCY, POLK AND THE BAMBERS. KEMBLE. 



67 



will be vast numbers of foreigners, so also in a country where labor is high and 
land cheap. It is but as ii were yesterday since foreigners were among the 
bravest and truest in two wars ; here they are ; here they will be ; whether for 
streno^th or for weakness ; as a shield to protect or as a thorn to goad and inflame ; 
peaceful and contented as your brothers ; intelligent, discontented, maddened, 
as your gibeonites, helots, slaves. I have no desire to see the Flag of the Union 
torn in two, with the stars to natives born, and the stripes to the victim of per- 
secution who has fled to your classic shores, to take refuge near the field of 
Lexington or base of Bunker Hill. Such a policy would weaken us within and 
without; foreign nations would read our declaration in days of old when their 
aid was grateful, and despise the intolerance and hypocrisy, the greediness 
of place and power which had, in three score years, falsified the noble record. 
Hundreds of thousands of men, able to read, reason, and reflect, would not be 
anxious to fight for a land where insult was their only portion, where they had 
only the bondsman's place to .struggle for, and the exclusive privileges of a mas- 
ter class to secure to those who would fill every olTice, administer government 
for themselves, and treat us as Polk does his negroe.'j. Are tliese states not 
weak enough already, with three millions of enslaved men and women, having 
such infuriated feelings as Calhoun describes, the result of ages of oppression ? 
Would the wanton degradation of half a million or a million of men like me, 
could it be effected, strengthen those defences, to secure which some eighteen 
or twenty millions of dollars are yearly expended in time of peace 1 

In order that we may the more clearly luiderstand the cliaracters of Van 
Buren, Marcy,* Flagg, Wright, Bowne, iSoah, Coleman, Earll, Keyes, Butler, 

* W. L. Marcy, in February, 1838, handed over the brotlier.s Bamljer, (aimers from ihe 
north ot' Ireland, and citizens, nine or ten years resident here, for trial on a political charge of 
murder, to Buchanan the English Consul. This he did in the teeth of llie law. .Uidge Brady, 
speaking of the Bambers, mentions that they were Presbyterians — old Mi'. H. a United Irisii- 
nian — and adds: " 1 waited on the Governor — produced papers which, if properly considered, 
should obliterate every feature of the offence for \\hicli they were doomed lo be sacrificed, ii' 
delivered to the ready executioners of a corrupt Governmerit. The Executive [Marcy], stern 
and inexorable, refu'^ed to grant their freedom.'' When the Senate of Hamburg, a corrupt and 
cringing body, gave up Blaclcwell and Tandy to the British, they excused themsehes to Napoleon 
as bieing weak. His reply was this — " Comage and virtue are the preservers of state.s — 
cowardice and crime are tlieii ruin. You have \iolated the laws of hospitality — a thing which 
never happened amonij the most savage hordes of the desert. Your fello« -citizens will for 
ever reproach you with it. The two unfortimate men die with glory — but their blood will 
bring more evil upon their persecutors than it would be in the power of an army to dc. if 
weak, liad yfiu not the resource of weak States 1 Cauld mu not have let them escape?''' 

Governor Marcy was formerly editor arid proprietor of the Troy Budget. It vvas aftervvard^ 
publislied for the party b>' Jcilm W. Kemtile, whom the leaders at Albany ordereil tc* he run 
for state senator, and afterwards u.sed liim as their tool. Kemble joineci Bi.shof>, another 
gambling senatoi", and Edmonds, the Van Buren leader in the senate, in ceitaiii stockjobbing 
transactions; and Kemble and Bishop uniteil with Bar.stort, a bank cashier, iii secretly using 
the funds of his batik '• to ripen a comliination" by which tlie .stocks of certain railroads would 
yield an unlawful profit. Their plot miscarried— Young moved to expel Bishop and Kemble 
from the Senate— Kemble resit^ned — and Charles L. Livingston, whose epistles to Ho3't speak 
for themselves in this volume, voted that Bishop was "guilty of moral and official iniseon- 
duct," but refused to send him back to hi^. constituents for their opinion on that conduct. 
Young and Van Si-haick then very properly resigned, and left the Senate. Kemble's language 
in the Troy Budget of 1834, siiou s that lie held the same opinions as Van Buren and Marcy. 

[Prom the Troy Budj^rt.] — '• To be frank, I sliall be heartily glatl when the election is over. 
To have the dirty whisky-swillfng Irish thru-sting themselves every hour between the 'wind 
and my nobility,' slobbering over me in every corner of our city, is more than I can endure, or 
niy stomach bear, without the aid of disinfecting agents. If oiii- case is to re.st upon these 
vermin lor success, much as I desire it, I shall rejoice to witness its overthrow."' 

When the people threw Marcy ori', Polk and Van Buren took him up. The former saved him 
from ruin in 1845, and the latter in 1839. Bancroft's dislike to the Catholics was one of hi^ 
chief recommendations to Polk's favor. 



68 CRAWFORD, VAN BUREN's NATIVE CANDIDATE IN 1824. 

Jacob Barker, Croswell, Skinner, Cambreleng, and the leading supporters of 
Crawford and the U. S. Bank, in 1824, it will be necessary to look into the prin- 
ciples and general character of Crawford. The reader will find that he was 
avowedly ine champion of what is now called the native party, ever hostile to 
the claims of the persecuted from other lands who seek equal rights and equal 
laws in America. His hatred to persons of foreign birth, to whom Clinton was 
ever friendly, endeared him to Croswell, Van Buren, Wright, Butler and Skin- 
ner, insomuch that the Albany Argus* opposed Monroe, and was friendly to 
Crawford in 1316, while Clinton refused to be a candidate in opposition to 
Monroe, in whose favor his influence was exerted. 

Crawford, in 181C, all but defeated Monroe in the congressional caucus as a 
candidate for the Presidency ; but his nativeism, his hatred to foreign-born 
citizens turned the scale in favor of Monroe. In Nov., 1824, he came within 
two or three votes in the legislature, of getting the whole thirty-five presiden- 
tial votes of N. Y. ; but here again his intolerance turned the scale against him. 
Had he got the vote of N. Y., the name of J. Q. Adams could not have been 
sent to the House of Representatives, so that he could not have been President. 
Van Buren was served in Baltimore, in 1844, as Crawford had been twenty years 
before ; but in the 1844^ case, there was a secret understanding. 

Among other eminent citizens who felt insulted by Crawford's lU-timed 
sentimenis, the celebrated jurist, Judge Cooper, of S. C. (then of Pa.), addressed 
several letters to Mr. Madison, over the signature of Americus, through the 
Democratic Press, in April, 1S16, from which the following are extracts : 

'=Mr. Crawford, a schoolmaster in Albemarle coimty, Virginia, conceiving it more for his 
interest to choose some new profession, and some new theatre of action, removed to one of the 
boundary coimties of the state of Georgia, as a cornitj- court lawyer. In such a situation, a man 
oftolerable education, manners and conduct, finds it no difficult task to become conspicuous 
amon<^ frontier settlers. In due time he was sent to Congress, and then, by that kind ot dexte- 
rous management which men of moderate talents are not unfrequently well qualified to pursue, 
he acquired influence enough to be sent as ambassador to France.- 't 



* The Albany Area^. Sept., 1824, tells us that William H. Crawford was born in Virginia, 24th Feb. 1772- 
the sononTborerieVnt'ated^ at the age of 14-followed the plow 'i.>121--then turned .choolm^^ 

ter and finally set up business as a lawyer. At a meeting of the younK men of Augiista, ^a-. July 2, 1-98 «„ 
adVess was voicd tL President Adsms, expressing full confidence in his adm.mstrat.on. ;uid agreeing to sus- 
ta in U Crawlord was on the couinuttee who reported this address, Y/"';?^,,.**,^ Tw T'h lels in on" 
he voted again.-t increasing the navy, but the war dianged his v.eyvs. He ""-'V ,• -iia .1,1 nX 
of which he "hot Pcler L Van Alen, a native of N. Y., and Solicitor General of (,a dead, and in the 
other was wound" d by Cen^^^^^^ Jan., 1808, in the U. S. Senate, he opposed Jefferson's embargo 

b m!bm in 9 or 10 mon\hs changed his mind. It was to his credit that he rose ''O"' »he st^Uion of a labore .o 
that of concre-man— sat in the U. S Senate— became a minister ot state— was sent o it to trance as am^-issa 
Z--m\T^\hou,ln worthy of being a candidate for the chair of \Vashington-if his course was manlj and 
hbnorablc rh<a it was pot a wise one for the Union, the files oftlie Aurora, edited by the elder Duane, aim mr. 
D^^^ra'-ldinlsions abundantly show. The evidences of corruption nnd .'""enness ,n the inancial de^^^^^^^^^^ 
which " a. Native of Viigini..." e.xhibited to the public may be lound on the files f^'^' '•;'"' J ?.'/„i^^^^^^^ 
find William Coleman, the leading federal editor in N. Y., lu his paper of .Nov. ~- l*^".:*- f^^,^ '| ""P- i„,Wment"' 
(Crawford) a decided preference, heartily, cheerfully, and w'''' '•>«'"' "Pl'f"''"'^," V''')„n'l','i^^^^^^ 

Colenau had beet, lie law partner of Kurr, but went round to Hamilton and the '^f fa^^!>^' ^ "^ 
i.,,^ i, . lai Mv; the fir^t editor of the N Y. Evening Post, in which situation he was conspicuous or his abuse 
of C li uSEmn t, wX^'ln, and the United Irish' In 1807 he thus speaks •.-" Intolerable .nsttU 1 mus he 
asserlors of America's rights be confounded will, the assassins ot \\'<^klow moun ,u..s7 mtM 
revolution bestow on every auarchiu and public disturber t».''"f '»« '"."^"V^i^ > fjh,^^^ 

the right to cbiim Auieiica for his lioi.ie and Americans for his kindred ? 1 he .ittennpt to =>""" ^^J, v''*^" 'V^ 
etween UniUd Irishmen and Americans is a« i.npu.lent and 'letestable as it is '■1^^'d'O"^; ,^ '^^^,'=^1^, New York 

irampled on the people's dearest rights in the hope of scctiiing to b'm the V'';^"l<;"< V , jr^^j„„. 

"t Jad.e Coopcr^lso ^t.l.B, that Cra« ford could not .peak a word o^i^^^^ 

KtlVr. 1 lil the ini'-tAkr was rectifi. d at Washington. Crawfoid was piqued ^> '.I'iput <:'>"^^ """, i,'"^" v„).v A" 

^^ItViftlce'wiSauihority.to ihe an.io.vanc.'ond injury of the '"-^l-'^^/^P J^ "^^ g 

his cCruwlord't) return to W n-hm«lon. Monroe's enemiee, and the enemies °/ ' f""l '"'^^bc sw^^^^^^ of war, but 



EQTJAL RIGHTS AND LAWS, CIVIL AND REl-iGIOUS FREEDOM. 69' 

"Suppose [continues Cooper] Mr. Crawford were to say as General Dearborn once said to a citizen bom 
abroad, but who has established two of the largest and niost successful manufactories in our country, • But, sir 
(says the General), you are not an American born.' ' Well, sir (replied my friend), and what then 3 How came 
I here 7' ' At an age when 1 was able to choose my country, on mature consideration and reflection, I came 
here deliberately from choice. I became a citizen upon your own terms and proposals — according to your con- 
stitution and laws, which save nie equal rights with yourself. 1 brought wealth, knowledge, and industry with 
me. I have embarked all my tbrtune in your country ; I have deliberately risked my happiness, and that of 
my wife and children, upon the same chance with yourself I have renounced former coanections to become one 
of you. I have made sacrifices to con)e here. I ara rooted and Americanized here, and so is my family. We re- 
flected and consulted on the subject, and, renouncing every other, have chosen this as our coiiutry. Hov> came 
YOU here I Not by choice, but by chance ; without your own knowledge, exertion, or consent, you found 
yourself here, because your parents chose to place yoti here. Your tirstappearance in America was as a weak, 
helpless, squalling, puling, dirty, naked infant, requiring the assistance of others to keep you alive ; dependent 
upon the ciire of others for twenty years of your existence. You were bora and staying iu America, because 
you could not help it, you have remained here because you knew no better, withoiit choice, notion, or reflec- 
tion. And do YOU compare yourself as an American, to meV I would not like, as an American, to acknow- 
ledge the whole of this reasoning, but there is something in it. I would t:ike the liberty, sir, if I dared take a 
liberty with so great a man, of asking Mr. Crawford, whether General Montgomery, General Gales, General 
Lafayette, Baron Steuben, Baron De Kalb, General Koskiusko, General Pulaski, General Hamilton, General St. 
Clair, General Lee, and General Stewart were not foreigners I ^Vhether the officers and soldiers of the Penn- 
sylvania line were not foreigners 1 Whether our financiers, Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton, were not 
foreigners'? Had our country any need to repent receiving, with open arms, these fugitives of the old 
WORLD ■? Does it become a man of yesterday, a man whose most distinguished act h,is been the famous report 
now under consideration, who is hardly known, but by the bigotry of liis sentiments, and the imprudence of 
his conduct; does it become such a man, who amuses himself like an idiot boy in the woods, with pulling 
down a wasp's nest about his ears ; does it become such a man to stigmatize, indirectly, these warriors and 
sages of the revolution ? Is there one gleam of cmiimon sense in Mr. Crawford's wanton insxUt of his colleagues 
in office, J\Ir. Dallns and Mr. Gallatin ; and of you, sir, who appointed these wdl-inforiiud and able men 7 tjhow 
me the foreigner who ever came to America, who has been or could have been guilty of such a needless, wan- 
ton, mischievous, mischief-making sarcasm upon the whole American people, their ancestors, their constitu- 
tions, their laws and usages, such as is implied substantially in this bravura finale of Mr. Crawford's Indian 
repcrt ■!" 

1 have experienced much kindness from the American people, and am satisfied 
that, but for the malevolence of some of their rascally politicians, aided by lazy 
preachers,* who have less of Christianity in them than of jealousy of other more 

showed his hand too early for a successful game. Van Buren and his confederates showed very little sagacity 
when they followed for eight long years the fortunes of Judge Crawford. 

" It is a dirty bird that befouls its own nest," says Cooper. Ai this time (1816) a majority of the whole people 
of the U. S. consistof natives of Great Britain and Ireland, or the descendants of such. Full 9-lOths of Ihe parents 
of the American people, in 1816, were natives of the British dominions. Did not Crawford calumniate mnii: 
than half the American jieople (of that day), and more than 9-lOihs of their imintdiate ancestors ■? Add also the 
German, Swedish, and French parts of the population. Did not England well receive and encourage Wi'st, Cop- 
ley, Count Rumford, Count Bowman, Dr. Solander, Mr. Planta, M. de Magellan and the Abbe Coroa? ILivc 
we five persons to the square mile 1 Has not England JOO 7 Dj we not want home maiiufaciui es ? wiiere can 
skill in the arts, sciences and manufactures and improvements, iu every profession, be found (out of America) 
more than in England, Prance and Germany ■?.. Do we not owe much to our immigratioi) laws, encouraging men 
of skill to come here 1 Crawford had advised Americans to marry Indian siivaies iii preference to the dau"hters 
of Scotsmen, Germans, English or Irishmen. He would have Yankee girls Cidled Mrs.Si:litlo<r, M:s. Great Biif- 
falo, Mrg. Litlle Turtle, Mxs. Mad-dog, Mrs. Tecuraseth, &c., by way of increasing social iapuincss o-i our 
frontiers. 

" Mr. Secretary Crawford's disgraceful imbecility as ambassador abroad, appears to have made him secretary 
of war at home ; for excepting his gross, his manifest want of t.sknt and acquirement, his pompous deportment 
his egregious vanit) , his despotic measures while minister, his secret but not inetficient enmity to yourself [.Vlr. Madi- 
son] and Mr. flionroe, and to the wishe.s of Uie republican party, joined to his double-Aiccd conduct on ilie late 
nomination of a luture president to succeed yourself— jrAsf qualification has this man 1 Is there one Durson in 
the country in the least conversant with the characters and conduct of American politicians, who does not know 
that every American in Paris, was put to the perpetual blush from the ignorance and insignificance of Mr. Craw- 
ford as ambassador there ! You could not have kept him there ; and yet this man comes home, to undermine 
and if he dare, oppose the republican candidate, [Monroe.] and to be made secretaiy of war 1 Thomas Jeirersoii 
would not have done this." 

* Though an admirer of the bold and dauntless Scottish reformer, Knox, I am not preju- 
diced against other sects. M'Crie got more praise for his life of that eminent man than his 
work merited. It is a fact that Knox proposed, in Scotland, more than 250 years ago, in his 
second Blast, the maintenance of principles not a whit behind the glorious declaration of inde- 
pendence, in 1776. Moreover, he was, like me, many years a banished man, or outlaw from 
his native Scotland. There I can sympathize with him. Even England was shut against him 
by aueen Elizabeth on account of his hi-st Blast. Dr. .Tolmson, the reviler of the American 
Revolution, calls Knox " the ruffian of the Reformation," but he never sanctioned that union 
of church and State which made a king or queen the spiritual head of both. " We find [says 
Dr. C. Pise] that no Catholic govermnent ever united the King and the Chmch, making the 
King head of both Church and State. No. This was the effect of the liberty as it is so 
termed, of the Relormation; for we find that after that event, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark 
Holland, and England established this connection, and made the temporal sovereign at th*^ 
same time their spiritual ruler ; the King in these countries, or the aueen as it may be being 
the head of government both temporal and spiritual. Rome has opened her gates even' to the 
Jews. Rome has given protectian to the unfortunate captives of Judea." When Van Bui-en 



70 VAN BUREN AND THE CATHOLICS. INTOLERANCE. KING ON SLAVERY. 

active priesthoods, the ill-will expressed towards our brethren from Canada, 
Europe- &c., would be unknown. Well might Greeley «^y^";h.swh,g almanac 
fbrlS4o," Native Americanism struck us a hard blow. ^ • * Mr Polk on 
this sini^ie question gained more than enough votes in the state of N. Y. to elect 
him." Nativeism killed otiMohu Adams's administration, and assis ed in under- 
mining that bold, uitelligent, and powerful party, the lederahsts ; it turned the 
scale ^gamst Crawford in ISlband* 1S24; a professed hatred of it which, it is 
evidenrhe did not feel, as 1 have shown in another place, secured to Polk an 
honor of which 1 think he has proved himself, thus far, not the most worthj . 

;;7r;;-rsid.nt the Roman Catholic paper of N. Y., Thc^ Truth 'nilcr bv William Denman 
ilm rpn^in-p hi« intolernnce. "What do we find during the Presidential ^'^^te^^^/^^^^^ 
d™.d h 'nne p^^^^^^ one olthe Western Stales, important to inquire whether Aix. Vaa 
Bu en u-as a Caliolic or not, and to "^-^inquiry a^reply was P^^J^ rCATHOUC 

^at^th:^.^n.h.^ 

Sdr^-l^^oS-^ wiSt;iSi!^^ only has ,he administration avoided takingup 

r.dellnceofaiSrpersecut^^ but has actually added insult to injury. It placed Mr. 

rLS The ope E'e and reviler of Catholics, in oftice, as if to try how lar their endurance 
^tbnSt:^ a£ Gov! Marcy ha^ committed a tatal error, in -';^;^7^;»- ^^'^^^li 
and had made himself obnoxious to adopted .-.tizens-what did the leaders ol ^ par v um 
Aev rlace anoOier democrat in nomination Ibr liis place ? Jso. He was put tortl and a. as to 
have been clSmied down the throats of the rebellious Irish. Their wishes or dislikes were 

'1S'eS;"S?c£ier of Washington Irving) in his oration belbre the Tammany Society, 
\Iav {^2 iHlO^'otlPred the Jbllowin^ philosophical remarks against into erance. 
^No en-or hi tett more prod-utive of human misery, than that which in "lost countries has 
placfd i s religSutunier thJ control ol its civil institiUions. ^hei-ei-s no such thing a^W^^ 
n,- .-onscience— its texture is not nmlleM,ble— it cannot be cooled and warmed at pleasure to an 
br^-nrdi'^i-ees ot-tnui^^^^^^ The most a aluable members of a community are those who are 
^ht t / a Toul attLhed and scvupulc^sly obedient, to their religious tenets A mo^^^^^^^ 
a"e we to look for patient indust.^v, strict frugality, correctness of mora s, ^"^'/.^f^'^l^ ''j^^ " , '^jj: 
Here -u-e we to search for that honestj- ingrafted on religion, which '^'^yhes the lulfi ment u^^^ 
individual .ontracts the preservation of order, the reverence ot law, and the sacred alleg ante 

duelioU con Jv ' THKN.Vr,ONTnArWAKS AUA.NSTANVMOUAL SECT, WHATEVER MAY BE .TS 

c^sT w u,s "n uir its .avn prospeu.tv, and s vps the foundations ok .t« .strength. 

* Rutus Kin,, ihou,h a ...lerutist, -'' "" ^en. .o F.nch r«UU^ or .hc^ 
by V... H.iren oltoncr th:u. <.uce for lh.= '"" «« "'^'^tV ^.^."spn^tor to the U « n IK".., and he was reelected 

ami Vonnj; were Kirir'.s lending supporters lor "?« otiice Senator to he Ub^ in , excepted. 

almost un.ni>nously, Clarkson Croluis, ol N \ ., •-"'■"f' "^ . "';"'^.^\; ;' ^^°in^^nt^ full representHtion rather 
HUhougli the same party the Near betore had cho.en " '^ " ^^^'''^ nay I. IHKl, he was elected U. S. 

canvassine for King in IHI'.i, thus wrote t"?^ <';«"f • ,. ^, ^inc Wr are conunitted to his support. 

•' 1 should sorely regret to find any tinfipng "" ^^^ »"''^^,'-, ' y^/ ^"^,l^_ "wr. King's views towards i<s are 
It is both wUc and lionest, and we must have no tluttenn!; ""' .^" "f,^ '" ,^^^^^^ ..lot, and we shall cive 
honorable and correct. The Miss.,ur, question '^<"'<^''=^'^: \". »•'•. , VeXwere when I saw you ; and you 
U a true direction Y.n- V'r,':^''t/''M C^ s^ mio^ ' &c a, t?.e asp'-ct oV the Albany Argus w,!l 
S ;:^':,;:T.;^'^hr'er^.". th^ :\k lir^a^::^'"^ -.;uot. there..rl loo^ bacK. L^ us not, there. 

mostbitterenmitylroin the Arras. , , ,. „r ,, v-.n \css Van Hiir.nMawteacher. who opposed Clm- 

I liave spoktn of " ArisUdes," a paniphlel l.y n. I •. ^•"\ ',^^"'J'''.;v';, .,,',. ..i savs Van NessJ arc held in 

ren and VVri,;!.., was a Crawford man .n 18'J4, as was '\ '~ 3";^."^^;"^^;,;^" ,hro A^h his influence, and that 
.Another of Van Baron's l•oll^w<-r^, who was "'''"> V''' '.■;'" ''^,^;'';.,.'^^^^^^ „ „ Jlh of July oration, deliv- 
„f his conr.derateH, .Ian.es Towers, ut (.atsk.ll, th.ts •'«''7'''; ' X'^,''' mi u^ n 'i%^fi^^^^^ and infamy, to corn- 
ered at Huds.-n:--'> What is the ev.l .l''"V '"i^/n J J M^e who kn w Hfcrcncc between a King and a 

K^oi!rJ!^;sra;;v;!<^=n^?w;:;;-a;e;^^ 

uJid who know of no other fear but thai which the ^.^Hows inspires." 



CRAWFORD'S ADVICE. MARRY SAVAGES RATHER THAN IRISH GIRLS. 71 

It IS a curious coincidence, that while Crawford was thus undervaluing and 
despising tbreign mechanics, the English courts of law were busily employed, 
punishing them by line and imprisonment for endeavoring to emigrate to the LI. S. 
Albert Gallatin, always the advocate of a National Bank, was placed on the 
ticket with Crawford, as the candidate for Vice President, but his foreign birth 
seemed to have marred his fortune, insomuch that he had to leave the course 
before the race was over.* 

in March, 1816, at the close of that war, in which foreign born citizens — 
from Lawrence, who closed his eyes in death, exclaiming " Don't give up the 
ship!" to the gallant Capt. Blakely of the Wasp — and the sous of forei'J'ners, 
from Connnodore Charles Stewart to Commodore ]McDonough — distinguished 
thejiiselves among the bravest of the brave, and the truest of the true of Ame- 
rica's sons, William H. Crawlord, being at that time Secretary at War, to which 
station he was called, after his European tour as Ambassador to Napoleon, eave 
vent to his hatred of the men of Europe in the following report to President 
IMadison on Indian atiairs. From that day forward, Noah, Van Buren, Wright, 
Butler, Cand)releng, Barker, and the Native faction became his friends, and 
only deserted him when hope was lost. 

" To James Mad'mun^ President of the Unit<-:d Slalf:-i : * * * 

If the system already devised has not produced all the effects which were 
expected from it, iit'vv experiments ought to be made ; when every effort to 
introduce among them, [the Indian savages,] ideas of exclusive property- in 
things real as well as personal shall fail, let intermarriages between them and 
the whites be encouraged by the Government. This cannot fail to preserve 
(he race, with the modifications necessary to the enjoyment of civil liberty and 
social happiness. It is believed, that the principles of humanity in this instance, 
are in harmonious concert with the true interests of the nation. It will redound 
more to the national honor to incorporate, by a humane and benevolent policy, 
the natives of our forests in the great American family of freedom, THAN TO 
RECEIVE, WITH OPEN ARMS, THE FUGITIVES OF THE OLD 
WORLD, W^HETHER THEIR FLIGHT HAS BEEN THE EFFECT OF 
THEIR CRIMES OR THEIR VIRTUES. I have the honor to be, &c., 

WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD." 

\\ e have shown the impartial reader, on the clearest evidence, that Van 
Buren, Cambreleng, Noah, Butler, Croswell, Wright and their confederates, 
trampled on the constitution, and violated the right of instruction, to place in 
Monroe's seat, in 1824, a man of a narrow, contracted mind, because he was 
prejudiced against the equal rights of our citizens of foreign birth, and the 

* Blair. Dl'thfi VVashiugton <Tl()be, copied the tollowiii;; censure of Daniel Webster, ivhen he was Secretary of 
Stato, fViMii Fryaiit's Evenins I'ost : f How sharp they look after us English, Irish, Dutch and Scotch :J 

'•'J'he ai'iMinitnient of a man named Reynolds, n/i alir.ti, by Mr. Webster, toaplace in the department of state 
has astonished those who knew him in tliis city. * '*' * The indecency of this appviiUmenl of an alien, to a 
post in the department which has the char^'e olnnr li)rei2ii relations, will surprise those who have not like us, 
cpa,';pd to be snrpriseil at anythini: done hy Mr. Web.^ter." 

What cimlil be more edifying than to see these pretended friends of the stranger, almost in hysterics bec-iu.^e 
line fiireinner had obtained a jiotty clerkship t<) copy papers ? Langtree and O'Sullivan were partners in trade 
at VVashinglon. They supplied Congress with a vast amount of stationery, charging double what they them- 
selves paid I'or many articles, and realizing enormous gains. lean prove it. They were, moreover, projirietors 
nt the IJemucratic Hevicw, which Andrew Jackson, M. Van Buren. the Globe, and the Albany Argus, had 
publicly recommended, as an organ and e.vponent of the principles of the party. All parties knew that Lang- 
tree was then an alien. When the Review failed in Washington, and Langtree had retired from it, he came 
to New York and was naturalized at the n)arine court shortly before his death, when he had completed his 
probation of five years. Langtree had e.xcellent qualHies of head and heart; but why praise him and abuse 
the other alien 1 



72 VAN BUREN IW THE SENATE. HE PLAYS PARASITE TO THE IRI8H. 

champion of thie U. S. Bank. While Rufus King, in the Convention of 1821, 
was voting for universal suffrage, without regard to property, such was Van 
Bureii's hatred of the Irish, and old country people generally, that he thwarted 
King and Young — went for restriction, and declared " that the character of the 
increased number of votes (in N. Y. city) would be such as would render the 
elections rather a curse than a blessing ; which would drive from the polls all 
sober-minded people." Clinton was kind to the Irish, and unwearied in his 
eilbrts to educate all classes. What has Van Buren done for education l 
Louis M'Lane,now U. S. minister at London, told a friend one day, that during 
all the time he sat with Van Buren in Jackson's cabinet, he never knew him to 
propose or take much interest in any great measure for the public good, but 
where anything was to be done by intrigue or party management, he (V. B.) 
was always the most active.* On referring to Van Buren's letter to Hoyt, 
Albany, January. 4, 1829, it will be seen that he would have avoided the 
appointment of Judge Swanton, one of the United Irishmen of '98, but as the 
city liked the Jud>^e°" he did not see how he could avoid the appomtment."t 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Two Pictures of a Politician.— Van Buren, Fhujg, Butler and Marcj friendhj 
to the U S Bank —They prove Us Charter Constitutional— Crawford and 
Gallatin's Crowninq Merit.— Monroe, Crauford, Madison, and Marshall on 
tfie Bank —The Albany Argus.— Thomas Ritchie and M. M. Noah on Jack- 
son.— Van Buren on a National Bank.— 7'he Albany Petition to Biddle for 
a Bank, and Who Signed it. 
In the New York American, of April, 1840, conducted by Charles King, the 

sou of that same Rufus King, whom Van Buren had aided in 1813 and sup- 

» ir Tj „ ,„■. . nnnniiitpd bv the le«islatuiP, n Senator of the United States for N. Y., in February, 1 S21 , ami 

» Van Bm-en w. s ^PP"'''^"^; ^'J 'J.!; f.f R^f"s Ki,* , bis coll.ague. at the openin? of the 17ih .on»rr.s, on ihc 

Uiokhisseatin ihe l^- '='• •f""''^' "\-''''-.' , '" q.„.,.„ ,iii r.I.-r'pfl "overior of N Y in IS-iS— and afterwards pre- 

3d of D.xcnd.er that year. H«;™^'-f ,^„\^f |^^;!,f '^37 '"vu'rpSlu o/^ K.public. In 1.21, uL, 

ttS^:'^^^^^^^^^^'^^^^^^'^^'^"^^ W.asi,in.ton,he w.s chosen by O.ego county a 

in. ;,t for debt, a.;d gained pubhc apl.roo.Uuu l)y ^" "!';'' 'S-^°;;„;'^^^^^ Jesse iXoXe o.hc loUower. He 

n.,",t of Taney and others.d.d Utile good He \<';^l''J^}l^"^^.r^^^ isdic.^n aliocether from the 
court on t,. Circuits, while .nth. | ^^^^^ -jy-,^ , f ^^l^iiacS!! !u^^^^^ •' •>- -"--.. 

,..r.. or au<nt« to the congrosUt Panan.a II.s »rg".nc . *, a d '^'^^^/^^^^^t'^"^/, '>.;'„"„' i„urnal in.prove- 
wiih ti.e vi.nv. of ihe lau,:r as '""'■"■>" «'-2',^"^^ \moun\'nn C'riVlcDuti^ and other n.cn of th. den.o- 
mc ds by tiH.peneral g<>vernmeMl--Clay, Adams, < a o n vnno^ ^ 'f ^ j,. • j rcs.dutions, dcclnrir.K '-tli.-U 

B,„.n «:,i ,i„c .nj. .!» UnM S.at=. ^"'l .^ J:".;:!? j^^V hi lit' m.MW 5m ',l!.. t«c ,..d l»'ir, .-i.d 

sf^rs.SJ-.i'::.';--™-"*"'™'^,;';^^^ -"• -» ""« 

pashaccs in this ■vVork : , ,. ■ ,i.„ r.,„.iiv ,.f rvn Tarkson •■■ou''ht refuce in lliis now happy 

'^ "D.i.cn frou. ill-fal-d Ireland «"''"'* "l'P''^«^''l"^' 'f/=''''y ™w "•'i'^" '"«>• "'^' 

cnntry, when-, after a brief sra.0,1 th.y were unha .p.ly f«";' ^J^,^'^^^ ,ef '. c 1 coinn..n.-emcnt of the wa, 
iu v.in l.opcd to escape. U w«s Go.n at.er ' l^A"- ''^' ' ^' /'l"' "^'^^^^ 1":). I lurc h.U and statesman was horn, 
which «re.v ouJ,nf, the "PPf''^^'^V,?'V'«!;mr': i, ^rv Z usi „m"to^^oH^xC a participator In ius Blru^gles, he at 
^::;i;;;;^;^J!n.:^' m:;^U^^r^:5s'c^\vS in^ r.,b,^sworc etcmal entity to every 



kind of tyranny over the mind of man."' 
la not litis the very M.-ence of hypocrisy 1 



CHARACTERS OF VAN BUREN BY HIS OLD FRIENDS. '* " 7^ 

ported in 1819, as U. S. Senator for New York, and who, like Solon.on South- 
w.ck, had had excellent means o ascertaining Van Buren's true character, the 
following article. The Albany Argus copied it on the 7th of that month, and 
replied by a torrent of abuse against King, for which Croswell was prosecuted 
1 laid aside that number of the Argus, and resolved to judge of the char-es it 
contained, by reference to facts only. ' ^"a.^c.-^ u 

[From the N. Y. Americaii-coi.io,! i„to the Albany Argus, April 7th, 1840.] 

'^ Mr. Van Biireii is a party politician ni3raly. He lias nev-r be-n Tnvthfno- „i „ i , 

him, per.s,mal .sucees.s, an 1 lie success of his rartv arpthl fiL .. •?""i' ? ^'f ' ''^"'' '" 
'hese happen to coincide with the puhlie^vi^ri"£ t^.S ^to^^^^l^L^'T''- t/' 
other hand, they should conllict, as too much they have done th^ bfc S^fw, ,V/" '^'' 
a.s.suredly be po.stponed or disregarded. Such has been Mr. Van BmS 5 past ca ee ' d t'hm 
t^'^^^^j;^.^^ ---^'y' ^" -^-- -^ expecffi^ntS^tr^i^Je 

AND SCHEMtiR, AND NOTHING MORE. POLITICAL CALCULATUll 

'■ It is, thcretljre, not unjust to him, ns we view his character tn in^;.f ti ^t •*• • • , ^ 
Britain shall hold out a probability of susta nino theSnn; ^ n.ist, tha il war with Great 
may be provoked." ^ '^ustaunn^ the present administration in power, war 




Mr. Van Buren HAS LITTLE MORAL FAITH OF ANY Kmn k , 

need no artificial excitation of bodv or mind TUi d^r^il Ai\ Y KIND ; barely enough to 
code of political practice, in which he rSvi" all ^cHIh'^^^ "!,"' ■.^"", '"^" «" ^^-''^^'i^l 
political actions^o co.nbinations of those inteiS UE%fwv^tl^^u^^^^^^^^^ 

— pS-^SStsmi^Sl^H 

i-epresentatives,'or otherwi Je con-^c^ s Si^^a iJ'oI^nSS T T"f ^''^^ '^>^ "'^ 
certain easy rules analoo-ous u, aiiliiion snl,.,--,, m. 7. 'i .^ ^ .^ V^ople, by mnans oi" 
He belongs wholly to thc^ est me AND ALV^RK in arithmelic, 

™n,a that ,.. i. u,e aj&, u„p -^ci;;'.' Sit J^,a7o::^a,™''; J^SS"" 
li the reader will turn to page m. he will find by Van Buren's letter, of 



74 VAN BUKEN AND CO. AS CHAMPIONS OF THE V. S. BANK. 

, . .u A. .A>.v Arg'ts which had been in the hands of his 
January 31, 1823, that the A^^^^^J^f^/bv ,nm as the stronghold ot his party, 
biother-in-law, Cantine, was .^«"'"^^^^^n' J^ uucal interest. " Without a 
and that he had in it a P^'c^^'^jy ^^ 7^;; . ^J^,, our harps on the ^v.llows. 

P.P.R THUS EDITED ^^^^^J, ^/r^Ho.SA.O SUCH CONVULSIONS," SayS VaU 

With it, the party can s^^^^^l*- .* ,^^^ ^^ instructed at the same time, 
Buren to his c«"f^f ''^♦'^'.SonV o the new editor to be sought after. Leake, 
with reference to the 'P'^''^^^^'"'"''^,' T „s u j,, feeble health, and of an ex- 
Cantine^s partner, was, as Hammond te^ us ^ ^^^^^ ,^„;, ^^ the pohti- 
tremely nervous temperament , so muh so as 1 ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ 

cal arena of Albany --but B^ J.J^;^;^^^^,',^^ to allow himself to be nomi- 

persiiaded Edwin t^i«^^«'^' '^^ ^ '^!,„tr a^^^ 1*^ P*^^^^ '^^ ''"^'^ 
UeA in the legislature as ^^^^^E^^'c'roswell and Leake to that lucrative 
assembly, March 31, ^^3' .•\PPf'^^„;"gat day to this, with the exception of a 

derstanding of his countrymen ^^ cautious, and calculating." 

Hammond truly describes ,<^^'^^;^^ '"..'^^^^^^h Hoyt, No. 129, page 195, how 
Peruse his instructions to Noah, ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^ „,i„ority c^ongressional 
to help forward Crawford the .a^^.e^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^,^ Vhat could be 

ca»c«s candidate, the United ^^ates Bank cand ^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^.^ 

^r^;^s::l^rLI\^^s^^^^ ^^ the l. Uose. lno. 51, p. 

'V. have seen that Butler and his P^^tne^ J^ Bun. .^^^am^^ ^^ 
.ell, Wright, Hoyt, ^:^^-i^:^X^^, Holmes ofV.no, 
ner, Knower, Eaton, Van Ne^ss, ^'^c^^.^ ^^^^ „f the supporters of W. H. 

and Cambreleng, were, in 1824, " the iro ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ 

Crawford for President, m opposition to JacU^on ^^ Crawford, and 

before the general ^^^^tion, a ser es of sketc^^^^^^^^ ^^^y because, in 1811, 

advocating his superior ^^'^f /^f^^^^^.^he .^^^^^^ of a national bank, on the 
and at all other times, he had defended the pi j . ^^^ j^,f„„,y Argus. 

ground that it was both useful -;;^'T^''tStn.cnc.nn., and probably 
^ It matters little who ^'l^'^'^^J^'^^^^^^^^ 

Denned by B. F. Butler, who helped t^rosweri » . j . importance arises 

S Flagged Dix have done in more -^^ ^^^^^ ^" en, \i mouth-piece 

from the fact.s, that they -Pf '^^J^ "\ J ,ST by ll editor, a's being the senti- 
and property, and were deliberately .ndosedb> ^^^ ^^^orsen-ent by the 

n.ents if Van Buren ^-^X^Nat^onal InteUigencer (always for the bank) 
^d\t^ OctleT^g- If tl!Sr^tutncurrei!le :' and in those days announ^ 
::S, th^'Sartin Van Buren was a '' veteran republican. 

rFro... the Albany ArRus, October, 1824.] 
r r Rppublicans to the sixth number of the Skdckcs, not because 
"Wca-'-kthe attention of Republicans to ^^^^^^ 
, . „. ,.f , n^morrncv is rotation in office, mid whrre a roan ''^=* J. "j ;", ,vithoiit 

hwidint thai I w""''! ""' '"T, ,^[ ', 1 i, „,: ;, p:.pr>r at CnlHk.ll, ><nrt h;; " ■'^V^'^'' ^rr.t..rt in th.^ Revised Law* 



REGENCY BANK P0L1TI3S IN 1824. 75 

it is the last, but because it has intrinsic worth, and, in the present posture of oitf political 
aflairs, a peculiar interest. In parting with the author, and with liis productions, we can only 
assure him, that IF UNDENIABLE AND COGENT TRUTHS, conveyed in the language 
of reason and candor, ably and clearly as it has been in this instance, CAN CONFIRM 
HONEST OPINIONS, or remove honest prejudices, the satisfactum of having done much in 
this %oaij is his." 

I will now give the reader a specimen of the " undeniable and cogent truths " 
of Americanus in the Albany Argus of Oct., 1824, which Messrs. Gales and 
Seaton copied on the 11th of that month ; and which are calculated, as Mr. 
Van Buren's cautious, cool, and calculating mouth-piece tells us, to " confirm 
HONEST opinions, or remove HONEST prejudices :" 

[From the Albany Argus, copied into the National Intelligencer, Oct. 11, 1824.] 
" It is undoubtedly true that a majority of the republican party in the Union were [m 1811], 
for various reasons, opposed to a renewal of the [United States Bank] Charter; and it is alsJ 
probable that the opinions of those who voted in its favor were at variance with the sentiments 
of a majority of the nation. Furthermore, the opposition to the bank was, in a great degree, 
political, and many firm members of the democratic party deprecated its renewal, either on 
mere party grounds, or because they viewed it as a measure fraught with pernicious conse- 
quences. All this 1 cheerfully admit, and surely it is all that the most stubborn impartiaUty 
demands. On the other hand, it is not true that the opposition to the bank bill was 

EXCLUSIVELY POLITICAL, OR THAT ITS SUPPORT INVOLVED ANY DERELICTION OF REPUBLICAN PRIN- 
CIPLES, OR ANY ABANDONMENT OF THE ADMINISTRATION. On the coutraiy, the subjcct was con- 
nected with many grave questions of constitutional law and political economy AND SO FAR 
AS THE WISHES OF MR. MADISON WERE CONCERNED THEY WOULD 
PROBABLY HAVE BEEN BEST ANSWERED BY THE INCOrIpORATION OF A 
^^'^ BANK* on a judicious basis. And if any further evidence is required of the views of 

S. wL'^utSution^l'"'- ■'"''''°" '""^"'*' '" ^'--^borate opinion showing that an incorporated Bank of the U. 

Mr. Monroe, ill a letter to Silas E. BurrowB, dated Jan "0 IS'll stntpo iim ho ha^ f„.,„^ j • .. , 
that .' until the union is thrcruened ^vith ruin, nVloa„s"c;n' \o'o^lZXe'J^il7:'\'^^^^^^ 
Bank, otherwise than at a creat sacrifice. These considprMiions: c^aiH \.^\ IoH ., o „>! \Mtnouc a i>ational 

'C^^^rz:::^"' 'Tf ;'^-" t i^V^^^^^^^^^ " Lt x^v^coTSn^r 

the war in 1815. A.^ to the constitutional objection, it formed no serious obstacle. In votin" against it in th« 

uartv triumoh 1 could not rimiht if «^ ,iLr,.;Vi .. . "'?^**^f ^ral party, and that Us passage was esteemed a 

In I83" "n a letter to Ch is InLr "'P?!,«''' '*'^' .^ l'«,y^>-.'gl'tlully the power 10 make a third bank." 
BankchaVirr in" ^'''"'' °* ^"•' ^'"^"^""' ^''^'''''' '*>"^ ^'^^'es his reasons for signing the U. S. 

e^.Irtctes^S'Ltrnm^n'^^^^ '" ''« P^-f ^'"°"^^ "^<' "^ 

Mnnual IcEislative reco!?nitinn<i in nn» 1m.,„ carried nto execution throughout a peru)d of twenty yetus, with 
wXlhe intirracauLsMnr thP lnV«? ,'h "'^*'*'''' '''"*' '^ P°*"'^« ramification of it into a new Stat^, and 

added a decreasing' pr^'^^^^^^^^^ "?"«r' '-g^ ■ '« all of which may be 

stitution. A veto lYom the I'xppntivp nnH^r ,1 ^ opinion adyerse to the constitutionality of such an in- 

almost necelsU^'of thTnie'sru fwo Id- h've' been': dXnce'of'au' the ohl" -""'-";" .°'-*« -P-'^i^ncy and 

In 1819, the question of the constuutionality of the Bank of ihe United S^'tes came" up for at^judioaUon in 



^^ 



76 DEMOCRACY TWENTY YEARS SINCE—' THE BANK FOR EVEr!' 

a.e adniinistration, it will be f.und in the fact that the Secretary of th.e Treasury- [Al»^-t Galla- 
cnl when applied to by the conv.uittce of the Senate fur las opmion, expressly stated, thai U 
deLd a rc^mcaX of the ha>ik as csscnllaUy ncccsumj to the operations cj govcnnncnt. 

"The opposition to the rcnev.alof the bank grew out of variou. eons.derat.ons. Many were 
nnnosed to the bill rof 1811], I'ccansc ilky were of opbuo^i that Covgrcss out not possess thecovstL- 
n P^erZl U,. Lrs, because they thought it, for poHtical or other -sons .ne 
dTerTnd dangerous; and others, again, on both grounds. Many rcpuUuans .,>roUu, ,t[l.] 
tZl^Lj L.ei seek an institution essenMal to tl. interests of the country, and teeoneemence 
T^:L^ent ,. ... [2.] l.ee..se they had no douMs as to tU ^^^^^^^^^^ ^J^^^^^^ 
.J' f A^r.. nriP nftbc nmviber perhaps the most prominent of the class. LXPLRltlNCl!. 
^.frROVED THrcORRECTNESS OF THE FIRST POSITION ^ A^V THE 
^EOPlI If<^.™"'' ..er,e.e,.a.,v«, HAVE RESPONDED IN FAVOR OF THE 

°T^"^«v„„MiheK.cnc.,.iivicv>,lhcre»vc,TOlh0Bc.f asi^rial ..haractcr, »hich hod a 
J ' „?I «ui*°„ 1. v.rio,, pam of ,l>= Union, puhHc «n,in,™ ,v„ ,,ooi.l«lly in 
bearmg on *» «"f ■'", J.^^^^^ . u,is vas cpeciallv .l,e ease in ihc pallor Slate,, Nvho«; 
ftvor of Ae renewal of Ih *-« ^^ J ■ „^ „„,„^„,^,, „„„„,„, i„ „„ ,„«. 

r^Hr XSWp-^cfn sT„;t- f™. Geo;.,a, a,,,, ,..a„v of ,he repnHican ,.ep.- 

, S™ o her Wl State,., in both House.., voted for ti,e hill. And it has never been 

SS ;^Te v* «; m!-. Crav,« ,-as in strict aeeonlanee .ith the ophrion, and -vishes 

It IS weu Kno important questions ot public policy. 

Z^f^^^^^O^A^^^ BANK IS ImONG THE NUMBER; and, 
^fa^r™n.a. have prevailed in IBIM -----' '^^^ ;';; 

r;,™™ Tr?OPainF°THE GOvIrnSn? InD TO HAVE ANTI- 
cSS m THIS risPECT, THE JUDGMENT OF THE NATION." 

TO *. defence t^ij^^ij^^^ '^i^i^'^'s^: i:^:^^';Ji^X 
^s:ir^r::^ 1^ i^Ji^'ti^^^^.y, it . .ou.e ... 

i„tut%1i2:LtVUroba,rW,«,io„^ 

lion of Van Buren for the U. b. »-■'>;,''; '7' "™,„, i,^„k'is " essential to the 

"tTsL":/*:^':;^;/';^ '; r'lv™:.,.xroflt gover„,nent,. that .he 
interests ot the couiiuv • n conslitutional— that the exponcnce ot 

seen, " the necessity oi preserving thai ov^.m ol tin ^oxoiiuk , 

fio/^nr IS follows, (4 Whiii.tii, '.ill) . , ,,,.,.i.i,,.i „„inion of this courl tlmt the act to 

Jr 1 L to the meaning he ...i.y f«|.p.He .t l.. 5"^'e. ^v.th t r. m- i scruplc.i to aciuie.ro in dec- 

^I.rw^ °Ha8 the wisest ..r.i i....fl .:...,.v<i.-niu)if^ jikI?-.- Isui,* ^;; "' , " "':,,,i,.. „,. h « c..Ue:.^'u..-s ; find sulise- 

Tn. in which he has he.n ov.TruU.I hy , 1..- '"\'"'*' "l''";',',";-,, ', , 'm" . w '• Mr. Tn.,cy - . u,, hi. opinion 

SMy .. con,or.n hi^^eif th.vv.^^s ... la.^ „, ,., ,„,,,... .,urt o. th. 

^^Zb^^T Fo?5o"a he'-w.u n>Jc th. ch.f ,«.icc o. ti.t court i 



VAN BUREN, CRAWFORD, GALLATIN, AND THE BANK. 77 

lutd "anticipated the judgment of the nation." The Argus not only endorsed 
Crawford in the fall of 1824, but also the U. S. Bank charter of 1816, and the old 
U. S. Bank and its renewal in 181 1 — and Albert Gallatin was glorified for having, 
on the 3Jth of .January that year, responded to W. H. Crawford's note of the 2yth, 
that he desired to see the bank renewed — that the banking system was firmly fixed 
— that h ' had found banks necessary to the collection and safe-keeping of the re- 
venue — that it was self-evident that the public moneys were safer when deposited 
weekl}' in the banks, than when allowed (subtreasury fashion) to accumulate in 
the hands of collectors (as Hoyt and Swartwout have since demonstrated) — that 
state (d(!posit or pet) banks would have to be used, if the U. S. Bank was put 
down, but would be less safe and convenient — that the government could control 
the U. S. Bank, but not the state banks — and that a system which had been tried, 
proved, and found to work well and safely for the puDlic, should not be des- 
troyed, and an experiment evidently less advantageous, substituted — that as the 
stock of the bank was partly owned by foreigners, provisions might be made iu 
the new charter, giving that portion of the capital to new stockholders, and 
such other modifications as Congress might desire to make — that he believed 
the bank and its branches to be constitutional — and that as the merchants owed 
the bank fourteen millions, and ten or twelve more on bonds for duties to the 
United States, as trade had been unfavorable, and many losses met with abroad, 
as seven millions would be payable to foreign stockholders, if the bank stopped 
(whose cash would not lie idle whether it v/ere peace or war), and as the bank 
had thirteen millions of its pajier afloat, which would not be succeeded by a 
better currency in the notes of the state banks, he [Gallatin] thought the U. S. 
Bank by far the best of the only alternatives he knew or had heard of. 

All this Van Buren and his confederates believed in, in 1S24; and Crawford 
for President, Gallatin for \'ice President, and a national bank and branches, 
and down with Jackson ! was the party cry. How changed in 1828-9 ! and 
without even a shadow of reason ! !* 



* ViUi Biiren's oflici.il I 
U S.. CeMirrtl C.ew'A- CI 



lio^rn.ilier, Hcilbiiid, tells us thai on thp 20th of Pel.., ISII, the Vice President of the 
iitnn, seiilori tho fate of the nld V. S. Bank by (liviiis his tasting vote against Craw- 
liintN hill til r.'iicw its ch:irter— nnd tli;it this vntp "was warmly defended and justified by Mr. Van Buren." 
Cp. H.')). '■ Mr. Van Bnren ardently and vi^'iironsly sustained this hold art of patriotism." 

It is very prc.h ilile that Van Buren was opposed to the XL S. Bank in ]8! 1, lor he was at that time a respect- 
ful and a-piriTi!; I.illower or sup|i(irter of tlie Clinton family. He was just as Ktron<j and vigorous on behalf of 
th(^ U. S. Bank in IHlf,, when Madison siirned the 2d charter— and in 1824, when Crawford was his favorite 
taiidi.late l..r the presiden<-y, I.ecause he liad lieen a consistent frieiid of a national i)ank. In 1829 he professed 
a sironi; aniip.tliy to the Hank— luit it was only with the view that his confederates and partisans mighl di- 
vide anion;; them more securely, many millions of public plunder. 

In Ills nKv>s.ai;e of Dec 5, 18-11), \'an Hiiren reasons thus : 

" If a Xatlonal Bank was, AS IS U.\i)E.\!Al!I,E, KKl'UDIATED BY THE FRAMERS OF THE CONSTI- 
TUTKI.N as incoiiip.atiIile with the ri!,'lits oi the .States and the lilierties of the people ; if, from the be-'innins 
It has been reiiarded by laiiie portions of our citizens as cominc in direct collision with that great and vital 
amemhiient ot the constituliyn, winch declares th.it all powers not conferred by that instrument on the Gene- 
ral Oovernmeiit are rr.served to the States and to the people ; if it has lieen viewed by them as the first great 
step III the march ot laliliKlinon-. construction, which, unchecked, woulil render that sacred instrument Sf as 
liltle vaiue as an unwniten ci.nsntution. de|>endent. as it would alone lie, tor its meaninc, on the interested 
iiuerprelati.iii ot a .lomiiiaiit ji.arty, and alfordim,' no security to the rishts of the minority]— if such is undeni- 
ably the case, what rational f;roMnds could have been conceived liir anticipating aught but determined opposi- 
tion to sucli .m institution at the jiresent day !" <• D to et~ •■ 

III his letter to Shernal Williams. Am,' 0,'l8:«i, he says : 

" The constitntioii dors not L'ive Coii-ress power to erect corporations within tlis states. This was the main 
point ..I 5 r. Jo lerson .s .olebrated ftpimon a-aiusl the e.itablislmieiit of the first National B^nk. It is an objoc- 
ion whnh noihint' short ,.l an amondincnt to the constitution can remove. We know it to be an historical 




hostility .•s.i.tin!.' acainst the principles and lorm of our constitution ;' and of tlie reasonableness of his appre- 
hension-:, that • pen. tra tins; by its branches every part of the Union, acting by coi.iiiiand, and in phalanx it 
misht, in a crilical miiment, U[)--etthe aoverntiient.' ' ' 

The deiiioiratie pi.riy lit.ld a state convention in Indiana, some lime during the winter of 1842-3, and pro- 
,)oiiiided. anion!.' other iiiicstions, to presidential candidates, the query /Vre you for or apr " 

Var. Buren replied from Kinrlerhook, Feb. 11, 1S43, in this way: ' •■ ■< >= 

•• I'he question of a National Bank is still before the people, and will continue to be so, 



gainst a national bank ? 
so long as avarice anij 



78 VAN BUREN AND CO. JUMP JIM CROW. ' DOWN WITH THE MONSTER !* 

In 1824, Crawford and a national bank were Thomas Ritchie's watchwords ; 
but the moment that he and Van Buren, and Fiagg, and Noah, and Croswell, 
and Marcy, pious Ben. Butler, Knower, and Wright, and their Swiss comrades, 
found that Jackson had the most votes, they prepared to worship the rising sun 
— and the mercenary presses which, in 1824, had assured us that Crawford, the 
champion of national banks, was the wisest man in the Union, turned round in 
1828 to glorify Gen. Jackson, whose great achievement, if elected, would be 
to slay * THE MONSTER,' hand over the treasury to the Washington and Warren 
Safety Fund Bankers, and give us a bank bankruptcy, a specie circular, the 
public lands gutted by Van Buren, Wright, Butler & Co., as a land company, 
with a sub-treas*.ry, and Isaac Hill, Stephen Allen, Jesse Hoyt & Co., for our 
sub-treasurers !* 



amhitinn see in it the means of gratifying the love of money and the love of power. IT IS ONE OF THE 
GREAT LEADING MEASURES OF A PARTY WHICH WILL NEVER BE EXTINCT IN THIS COUN- 
TRY. It is essential to the acquisition, as well as to the preservation of its power, and will never be relin- 
quished while there exists a hope of its attainment. I am opposed to the establishment of a National Bank 
in any form, or under any disguise, both on constitutional grounds and grounds of e.xpediency. THE POWER 
TO CREATE SUCH AN INSTITUTION HAS NOT BEtiN GIVEN TO CONGRESS BY THE CONSTITU- 
TION, NEITHER IS IT NECESSARY TO THE EXERCISE OF ANY OF THE POWERS WHICH 
\RE GRANTED; and if exercised, would be, as it always has been, highly injurious to the public welfare. 
1 am not one of those who believe that the long cherished project of re-establishing a National Bank is, or ever 
will be abandoned by that party which always has been, still is, and ever will be the advocate and support of 
such an institution. It may lie dormant for a season, from a conviction of its being inexpedient to revive it ; 
but he must be blind to all indications of the future, who, seeing that even at the very period when the old bank 
■was infecting the very air wc breathed with its corruptions, and when public indignation was most heavily 
weighing on its long series of delinquencies — at that vertj moment, a successful effort was made in both houses 
of Congress to create a similar institution, should nevertheless lull his caution to sleep with the delusive idea 
that the project will ever be abandoned. Most assuredly nothing but the stern vigilance of the democracy will 
guArd it against an institution which may thus be prostituted to the ruin of individuals, the disgrace of the 
country, and which, whde so limited in its power to do good, is so potent for the perpetration of evil." 

In the above declared opinions. Van Buren tells the public, that it " is undeniable " that a national bank 
was '"repudiated by the fiamers of the constitution";— that " the constitution does not give congress the power 
to erect corporations within the states .... the convention refused to confer that power on congress"— that 
(as JelFerson said), '' this institution is one of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form 
of onr constitution" — and " that the old bank was infecting the very air we breathed with its corruptions." 
In 1834 he sent, as a toast, to a 4th of July celebration at Frederlcksburgh, " Unqualified and uncompromising 
opj)osition to the Bank of the United States — the interest and honor of the people demand it." 

* I am no champion of national banks, composed of private stockliolJeiH. If we must have 
]>3per, let it be the j.romises to pay of the nation, and let the nation liave tlte profit of the 
issues ; and if there is not national uprightness enough to manage an unifomi currency of na- 
tional paper, let us have specie. Clay and Web.ster asked Forsyth, Cambieleug, Wright, 
Van Buren, and 'their worthless allies, in 1834, to say what better s3'stem they were to build 
iip, if they pulled down the national bank and removed the deposits. The party answer, in 
Congress, in the Globe, in the Argus, every^vhere, wa-s — " We go for the pets, but no sub-trea- 
-sury." Thus far, Clay and Webster were right — the change was ruinous to commerce, to the 
public morals, to western settlers, to the widow and the orphan. Clay proposed the extraordi- 
nary, and, as I think, too sweeping measure of the Bankrupt Law of 1841 ; but it was the 
unprincipled profligacy of Van Buren, Wright, Butler, and their comrades, between 1828 
and 1840, that .secmvd the passage and .sponging operation of that law. Hi.story tells us thai 
originally the rt'ij-iblicans stoutly resisted the introduction of paper monej^ by the federalists; 
but, under Van Buren and his Swiss allies, the democrats have far outstripped their old oppo- 
nents in spreading corporations over the land — corporations evidently too potent for evil,wnat- 
ever of good may proceed from them. 

Hearken to Van Buren, Flagg, Wright, and Croswell. This is their language to the de- 
mocrats of 1824 : 

(From the National Advocate, of May 15, 1824.] 

" The General [Jack.son] preferring Monroe to Madi-son, because the former could stand 
blood and carnage better ; his recommendation of military men generally to office ; his avowal 
that he would have bent the law.s to suit his purpo.ses, and hanged Cabot, Otis, and Lyman, of 
the Hartfijrd Convention, probably including their respectable secretary; all exhibiti; a FE- 
ROCIOUS dispoxitu))!,, trammelled hy no coji^litutlonal or legal barriers ; checked by no humane 
or just considerations. It is out of the question, out of all reason, to think of him even for a 
moment for president." — M. M. Noah. 

The editor of the Albany Argus, May 25th, 1824, thus spoke of General Jackson and his 
opinion.s : — " This most artful scheme for the destruction of the republican party [by the elec- 
tion of Jackson] — as secretly as it has been permitted to operate— as smoothly as it ha.sbeep 
^ssed over — and in as fine phrases as it is now given to the world — is fully understood. Re- 



VAN BUREN, MARCY AND BUTLfiR BESEECHING NlC. BIDDLE. 7d 

It is a well known tact, that in 1826, M. Van Buren, VV. L. Marcy, B. F 
Butler, and Charles E. Dudley, all of them residing in Albany, signed a very 
polite and respectful memorial, (which has been often published to show how 
utterly unprincipled they are,) asking that a branch bank of the U. S. Bank, 
mio-ht be located in Albany ; Van Buren addressed a letter to Nicholas Biddle, 
warmly reconnnending the measure ; and the Albany Argus, then a national 
bank paper, urged the claims of the memorialists, and conceded the constitu- 
tionality of branch banks. General Jackson, with almost equal consistency, 
asked that a branch might be located in Florida, when governor there. It is 
impossible not to see that Van Buren and his cabal must feel the utmost con- 
tempt for the intelligence of their countrymen, when they thus mock them with 
a pretended atiection for a constitution which means anything, as by them ex- 
plained, and can be applied to any and every purpose, however contradictory.* 

pMicaiis in this state, whetlier the friends of Mr. Adams, of Mr. Clay, or of Mr. Crawford, 
discover tlie fall extent of it — tlie liopes it is intended to encourage, and the designs it is in- 
tended to accomplisli. T/teij will be the last to tind an apology for it, as they have been the 
tii'st to condemn it." 

Holland's Life, which I purchased in Steele's store, Albany, ten years ago, and foolishly 
credited lor trutli, tells u;;, page 319, that, " In the election ol General Jackson, Mr. Van Bu- 
ren plainly foresaw that he .-sliould witness the triumph of those principles for which he had 
struggled from his earlie^;t years." What a mocker and .^^cotfer at honesty, liberty, and the in- 
stitutions of his native land, this Van Buren must be! Had he chosen the stage, he could 
have played any part well, but that of an honest man. 

[From tlie Albany Argus, May 18, IS'24.1 
" T/ie course adopted by Mr. Jacks.on ix food and raiment to the fkderalists a7t,d the nih 
■party iiieii. It is pleasant to all who strive for the destruction of the democratic party. They 
will everywhere applaud it, as they have preached it; and will magnify the author of doc- 
trines which are .so well intended for tlwir .service." 

[Prom llie Alhaiiy Argus, 3l8t August, 1824.J 
" They [Jaclcson's supporters] profe.s.s to be republicans., and yet they support a man who is 
l{itoiun. to have beeti. ALW A\S A Fl^DERALIST — they profess to be the friends of the people, 
and yet, in Tennessee, as in New York, they have always resisted the equal and just rights of 
the people, and the extension of those privileges which are mo.st valuable to tiiem. It is the 
duty of every republican to expose these conffadictions and inconsistencies of conduct and 
profession ; and, as far as po.ssible, counteract the purposes they are intended to answer, namely, 
THE PROSTRATION (JF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, the sulrverSMn of the real inter- 
ests of the people, AND THE ELEVATION OF TEIE OLD ARISTOCRACY, and the dis- 
appointed, iLneasy 'nieii of all parties.'" 

* The following is a true copy of the petition of M. V. Buren ami others to Nicholas Biddle and hl» brother 
directors, for a slice from tlie unconstitutional loaf. 

" To the Directors of the Bank of the United States : The memorial of the subscribers, in behalf of them- 
selves and their lellow citizens of Altiany, respectfully showeth — That, since the completion of the Northern 
and AVestern Canals of this State, such facilities are given to transportation, that the quantities of country 
produce brought to this market from the interior of this State are increased to an immense amount, and when 
10 this is added the produce which will he lirought to this market from the fertile regions of the northwestern 
parts of Pennsylvania, the State of Ohio, and the Territory of Michigan, some idea maybe formed of the amount 
of business which mi^lit be done in this place, was there a sufficient monied capital located here, to give coun- 
tenance and support to commprcial enterprise. The capital of the Banks located here, under state incorpora- 
tions, is entirely insuflicient to afford those facilities to comitiercial enterprise which the business of the place 
would warrant, and vvhicli the most caulious prudence would justify. The limited capital of our banks forbids 
the extension of our trade. Merchants of moderate fortune an- discouraged from taking up their abode amongst 
us, from a knowledge that die bankinfj capital of the place is inadequate to the demands which are made upon 
it (or the prosecuting of a sufficiently extensive busiiiess to render it profitable ; and instances are not wanting of 
active, intelligent and enterprisini; merchiuits removing from this place to the city of New York, to participate 
in the benefits of an increaseil banking; capiiil, ilio' their business has principally been continued with the interior 
of this State. The western worbl is pom inu it ; lre:isiiris into the market ol Albany, but its citizens are doomed, 
with tantalized feelings, to behoUl a rirh and prolitable trade float past them to the city of New York, solely 
for the want of a sufficient banking capital located amongst them. Ctiuld the produce brought to this place be 
purchased here, such portion as is not wanteil for home consumption might be exported directly from here to a 
foreign market, (as far as the navigation of the Hudson would permit,) and return cargoes, calculated iot the 
interior of the country, might be imported, without the expense of trans-shipment at New York, or the profiti of 
the importing merchant there. These cmibiderations have induced ilie citizens of Albany once more to ask for 
ihe establishment of a Hranch or office of discount and deposit of the Bank of the United States m this city. It 
id hoped this application will be favorably received, as the same causes which render it desirable to ihe citizens 
of Albany to have a Branch of the United iStates Bank established here, conclusively show that it would be a 



80 fttCttARD D. DAVIS ON I^TARTIN VAN BUREN. 

So late as January 3, 1828, the Regency hatl not matured their grand safety- 
fund humbug. The Albany Argus of that date " commends to the perusal of 
all candid men," a letter to Mr, Walsh of the National Gazette, of Dec. 27, 
1S27, disapproving of "the singular and impolitic proposition of Mr. Barbour 

to sell the shares owned by government in the U. S. Bank You will 

rejoice at the final vote on the motion of Mr. Barbour : . . . there was no ap- 
prehension here, at any moment, that the re.solution would be adopted ; but 
there was an apprehension that the mere proposition would have an injurious 
elfect upon the public pecuniary concerns of the nation ; and there was, there- 
fore, a determination to put the question at rest as soon as possible." 



C H A P 1 E R XIX. 



Richard T). Daris' on Van Burer\^ Policy. — His Jngratihtde towards General 
Pitcher.— Soiiihirick vp for Governor. — Van Biircn entraps Rochester, and 
the Argus goes for GUiy and Adams. — Van Biiren, King., and the Albany Post 
Office. — Kendall looking ahead. — The Jackson Gampaign. — Isaac Hill on 
.LQ. Jldams. 

Richard D. Davis, of Poughkeepsie, an anti-whig member of the last Con- 
gress for Dutchess county, was an early su[)porter cf Jackson and opponent of 
Crawford, Butler and ^'an Buren. He was next a warm admirer of Calhoun, 
and upheld the Telegrajjh. Calhoun's course on nullilication displeased him, and 
drove him round to Van Buren's camp. In 1S40 and 18-14, he gave Van Buren a 
powerful suj)port, for he is energetic and eloquent. 1 think he is not at present 
very partial, either to Polk, Texas, or the extension of the area of slavery. 

In Van Buren's letters to Hoyt, iSos. 16::$ and 165, page 207, he tells 
him that a certain zealous Jackson man could not then be removed without 
danger, and that \yestervelt had saved the Albany Regency at the nominating 
convention of 182S, by throwing Governor Pitcher overboard, and setting up 
Throop. A letter of R. D. Davis, addressed to General Jackson, from Pough- 
keepsie, April ir)th, 18.31, throws a very clear light on \'an Buren's policy. It 
was first published in the \'\'ashington Telegraph.. After telling General Jackson 
that Mr. Van Kleeck, P. M. at Poughkeepsie, was one of those " rascally post- 
masters" who were for him and Clinton, when Van Buren was the enemy of 
both, he adds that his removal was threatened because he had not been a Buck- 
tail. He then describes Van Buren's policy, in these words: 

" Th.Tt p ilicv nml that distiucliuii, was lo injiko a dilibreiic'^ Ix'tween tlioso of your friends 
who had l;i'cn i.'liiiloniaiis mid those who had been the toolsaiidadlicreiitsofMr. Van Buren — 
to perseenU", oppress. ;'jid insult tlic fori nt^r, and to ass^oimdi/e, pniinote, and favor the latter. 
As a meinondilo .xainplc of this, 1 need hut mention the pro.-oiptioii of General Pileher. Tlie 
Herlinier ( 'ouvention, whieh nominated Mr. Van Buren fur Governor, and of whieh 1 was^a 
iiieint)er as one of tiie DeU'i<aies troni this eountv, Imvinir, BY GllKAT PREVIOUS 
MANAGKMi-yN'J', been u)ade to enibraci^ a Imre majoriti- of diose under tlie inliuencc of, or 
wlio were tlie personal adherents of Mr. Van Buren, in tlie tnllilhuent and furtlierance of that 



s(iiiri:i- .ifprulii tci III ' parent ill^liIlUi 11. liidicd. il is l)cli. veil llrit a Bnindi lavr would !..■ iiiorc- iirolilalilc in 
if(".Tfiic<-l() till- i-vlcin !>' bii>inOJ.- (loi.f, tlian .>t'V.'ral dl'llir IhmmcM'^ 1 riii.-.l la s<'a poll lowris. 'I'ln- local siiim. 
lion of Allian) ri-iidcis it an iMilr. p.u hitwi'ii tli.- I'.asliTii Siali s ai'dtlu- Wivlcni CoMaiu-; li'twceii the South 
anil llir Norlli. anil ioas.-<iii n.lv a viiv i-Mui'iivf ciirnncy would m civni ii i)i.' liills issiird Iroin a braiirli 
hi IT, and the ii.Uurr- of the' trade which' wouhl \n- pro.sfCiu. ci hrrc. would in a L'r.al iiica'^iire rcixl.r the hills of ii 
!!r»ru-l: e-;;ahli-hed la lliis pa. a- the ciniilaun'.' ai< (hum of the exa ii>ive ri',:ioas who.;e proihice would he hiou(!lit 
I., marlict. Iii.siiiiah, iherelore. .-is ilie e-^taMis^niii ni ofa liiaiieh he.e uoiihl iioi only he hiLlily advantapeoiis 
lo lids ciiy, hut a siiirie id piolil lo the pan lit iiisiilulion. we Jaiiie ihil th ■ iliier.oip ol' the t'luled .Staiei B ink 
will iiilaiilish uii otiice oI'dHcouiit und deposit ai tins plaie. 

(Signed) M. V UUUEN, B. r HI I'M'^R, W. I. .M AUt'V, and others. 

Albany; July 10, le'.T.." 



i 



VAN BUREN SAVED BY WESTERVELT. GENERAL N. PITCHER. 81 

policy refused to nominate General Pitcher for tlie office of Lieut. Governor, wlien it viaa 
expected and wished by nine-tenths of vour friends that he should ha\'c been. Gen, i'ltcher 
had never been a Clintonian, but had been a uniform Bucktail ; and when, by the demise ot Mr. 
Clinton the i^overnment of the state devolved upon him, his administration was conducted m 
an eqiKil and impartial manner towards all your friends, ?nd distinguished by a firm and 
honorable opposition to the policy which it was Mr. Van Buron s intention to enforce Gen. 
Pitcher was proscribed and prostrated by the agency, management, and influence of Mr. Van 
Buren and his personal adherents, for the above reasons, and because it was well known that, 
in the event then contemplated, and now consummated, of Mr. Van Buren's being called into 
the cabinet Gen. Pitcher would have continued to act on the same liberal and honest princi- 
ples His'great zeal and valued services in your support, his popularity throughout the State, 
and the certain injury to vour cause by the absence of his name from our ticket, had indeed 
caused the faction of which I am complaining, to conceal their dark designs from the great 
body of the Republican partv until tlie moment of their execution ; but they afforded him no 
protection against the vengeance of those who hold subserviency to their vievre as the only 
merit, and the refusal of it as the only and the inexpiable oilence. No other single act was of 
such signal and lamentable injury to'our cause throughout the State as this ingratitude and in- 
justice to Gen. Pitcher. In all the ensuing measures of that election, and in every county of 
the State that I have heard of, the personal partisans of Mr. Van Buren pursued the same policy, 
and adhered to it with a pertinacity so preposterous, insolent, and oppressive, that nothing but 
your own personal popularity and the magnanimous devotion of your real friends saved us 
from an entire and universal overthrow. In many districts your earliest and constant friends, 
driven by their just indignation at such abuse, forsook your cause, because it had become identi- 
fied with that ot their inexorable and merciless persecutors. The result was, that from a party 
literally overwhelming at and immediately after Mr. Clinton's death, we were reduced to a 
mere majority, and Mr. Van Buren himself only escaped defeat by the accidental and collateral 
advantage which accrued to him from the anti-masonic excitement at the West ; nor, was he 
now to renew the contest unaided by the implication of your interests in his election, could he 
avoid being defeated by a large majority." ..." Van Buren and his adherents are now 
reaping the reward of all that Clinton did in your behalf; and he and they, who came in at the 
eleventh hour, and when no man else would employ them, are now lording it in this State over 
those who bore the heat and burden of the day— and lording it with such an extremity of inso- 
lence and oppression, as is only commensurate M'ith the power they have thus fortuitously 
obtained." ..." If the memory of Clinton and what he did, caiuiot preserve his friends 
from the remorseless and eternal hostility of Mr. Van Buren; if the patronage of the Generai 
Government, which we support, is to be used for our destruction and to fulhl the base purposes 
of Mr. Van Buren's personal and viperous malignity ; if these things are to be, tliey must be, 
but they shall not be in this county, without at least one man's humble ellbrts to prevent them." 

r have long been of opinion that Solomon Southwick was set up in 1828, as 
a candidate for governor, to make up for Van Buren's want of popularity and 
secure his election. The Albany Argus of March 8, 1828, says : " We publish, 
in another column, Mr. Southwick's acceptance of a nomination for governor, 
made by his friends, on the 26th ult. at Batavia. Notwith.standing this nomina- 
tion is sneered at by the Daily Advertiser, and some Avho are very willing to 
receive the aid of Mr. Southwick's exertions in their behalf, so long as they 
are performed in another capacity; yet we know of nothing that debars the 
friends of any individual from avowing their preference, even if such avowal 
chance to cross other and conflicting views." In Van Buren's letter to Hoyt, 
page 205, he rests partly for success on the faith he has that " Southwick's vote 
witl be large." When Southwick had the Albany post-office, Van Buren con- 
sidered it safe, but he raised an awful tempest at Albany and Washington, 
when Southwick's insolvency led to the nomination of Van Rensselaer.* 

* Solomon Southwick was successively in oifice as Clerk of the Legislature and State 
Printer, and was very popular. He got the Mechanics and Farmers' Bank under his control 
— acquired great wealth — tuok the federal and commercial side in the war, in 1812 — and 
although he had abused Colonel Monroe and his friends unmercifully through his press, was 
appointed Postmaster at Albanv, in which capacit ■/ I first saw him in February, 1821, Strange 
to tell, in .January, 182-3, he was a defaulter and a bankrupt, advertising for the benefit of the 
State insolvent act, as was, alxjat the .■<ame time, another who lias much more recently held the 
same office. Southwick, in those days, was complained of by Gov. Clinton and Judge Spencer 
— he was the confederate of Van Buren, whose •• sufferings was not intolerable" till he heard 



82 VAN BUREN, SOUTH WICK AND THE ALBANY POST OFFICE. 

Van Buren, Knower, and Marcy nominated Rochester and Pitcher, for 
Governor and Lieut. Gov., at Herkimer, Oct. 1826 — both against Clinton. 
Noah, as advised from Albany, came out for Chnton and Pitcher, and aided 
materially to defeat Rochester, as Van Buren wished he should. [See note to 
page 201.] " Mr. Van Buren defeated the election of Mr. Rochester," says 
the N. Y. American of Sept. 17, 1827 ; while appearing to support it, he 

that President Monroe was about to appoint General Solomon Van Rensselaer, who had been 
wounded with six balls, one of which is still in his body, and suffered very severely at the 
battle of CLueenston, where General Brock, President of Upper Canada, was killed. Van 
Buren got Rufus King to assist him in a protest against Van Rensselaer, and a recommenda- 
tion of Ex-Chancellor Lansing for the vacant office. A meeting was called, Charles E. Dudley, 
Mayor, in the chair, Benjamin Knower, Secretary, with Chief Justice Savage, John O'Cole, 
Roger Skiiiner, and Moses I. Cantine, taking part in it, which resolved, that the conduct of 
the Postmaster General, Return J. Meigs (who had forfeited their respect), was " unjust and 
arbitrary, disrespectful" to Daniel D. Tompkins and M. Van Buren, " and not less insulting 
than oppressive to the community" — that Van Rensselaer was " a zealous and unrelenting 
enemy of the republican party" — and the office given him " one of the most important in the 
gift of the administration. 

To explain these resolves, I may here mention that although Jefferson had laid it down as 
the rule, that the only questions to be solved in such a case, are. Is he capable 1 Is he honest 1 
Is he faithful to the Constitution 1 — although Southwick was hopelessly insolvent, and yet col- 
lecting the revenue — and although twenty-two out of the twenty-six Congressmen for this State 
had recommended to the government to give Van Rensselaer the office, Van Buren wrote the 
President and the Postmaster General, asking that his (V. R.'s) appointment should be delayed 
a fortnigh , to give time to organize an opposition to it. Col. Monroe would in no way inter- 
fere — Mr Meigs would give no delay — van Buren and Tompkins tlien wrote to the postmas- 
ter generl . to this effect — " that his (Van Rensselaer's) conduct has been that of a gallant man 
we cheeit ily admit," but " that the United States have granted him a liberal pension for life, 
which vf\ ; allowed to commence many years back ; independent of which he has for a long 
time held a lucrative office in the State [from which, by the way, Van Buren and his friends 
had ejected him the moment they had the power] — that Lansing was a firm and inflexible 
republican," but Van Rensselaer " a warm, active, and indefatigable opponent of the party." 
They asked whether the place ought not to be given to Lansing " because he belongs to the 
republican party ;" or if not to him they would name others of the party — and they assured 
the postmaster and the president that the party in N. Y. " will regard it as a matter of great 
importance, that the postoffice at the seat of government should be in the hands of a gentleman 
of the same political character with themselves" — and that the general government was con. 
ferring an office which would give Van Rensselaer " much more political influence and con- 
sideration among them, than the one of which they (the party) have deemed fit to deprive him." 
Mr. Meigs, postmaster general, replied briefly, thus : " I regret that, on a view of the whole 
subject, I have not been able to accord with your views and opinions." A Kendall or a Niles 
"would have been more pliable and ductile in such hands. The principle on which Van Rens- 
selaer's appointment was made, was bad. He was then a member of congress from Alban}'— 
and to take a trusted representative of the people from his post as a public sentinel, and reward 
him with the post of a deputy-postmaster, is at variance with the spii-it of our instilution.s. 
That, /wwever, loas not one of Van Buren''s objections. 

Another Albany meeting was held on the 25lh of .f^miary, at which Lieut. Governor I'aylcr 
presided. Philip S. Parker remarked : " That Mr. King, a higli toned federalist, and cidevani 
leafier of the party, should object to the appointment of Gen. Van Rensselaer, as a deputy post- 
master, because lie was a federalist, is truly remarkable, it is a fact notorious in tiiis city and 
in this stale, that the vice president and Mr. Van Buren were zealous and active supporter.^^^, 
and contributed much to the election of Mr. King to the senate of the United Slates, notwith- 
standing he was li federalist ; and that very many of lh;it party, who, during the late war, used 
f very exertion to thwart the views and operations of the general as well as tlie government of 
this state, while General Van Rensselaer was fighting the battles of his country, and spillmg 
his blood in its defence, have been taken by Mr. Van Buren into full confidence, and llu'ough 
his controlling influence over the Council of Appointment of this .state, have been appointed to 
honorable and lucrative offices. That the inconsistency of the vice president wa.5 still more 
glaring." 

Col. R. M. Johnson and General Andrew Jackson were very friendly to the appointment of 
Van Rensselaer, nor would Jackson remove him, although the N. Y. Evening Post declared 
the office to be a very lucrative sinecure. At length Van Buren turned l^m out to make way 
for Plagg, and during the time he held the ol£c^ ^ Jfl, Y. Post, as re^p^.. . thai sinecure, wa4 
jSrvery silent, 

■ '\ ~ 



A FALSE FRIEND. VAN BUREN FOR ADAMS. RITCHIE. OO 

" took care to pulsy, a. t^.. as his secret .nflue,.ce -"[>;»-„ ^PP;';^;;^^,;,^?^ 
whom he could confol-and the result u. th.s ^'^^ t^"'- ^•j'JX"',';'''^^^^ 
Chenanoo, and elsewhere, .nanifest how well h.s measures ^^^ f^^' ^^J ^^^ 
Buren feared that Rochester's success would secure the ^ote ot thejt^je ^or 
Ad.ms.and hence even party ties appear to have been ^-^^^^ ^^^f ^^^^^^ 
I r. t t^ TL*. Npw York t^aqu rer, always on the aleit, (sa)sthe i\ai. luieu. 
o?F^b -3 1^2. ) as a leaSy nunun'ated the Hon. M. V. Buren for the vacant 
nflW ^f^mvrnor '' Noah was ready to do this while Clinton's reinams were 
oflice ot go . noi. ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^,, of his subservience, given m 

£ S;:i?or^tlce ':: ^l stron. enough to convu.ce everybody, more . yet 

""'Thlf Van Buren was for Adams in 1825 is clear, even from //.. Albany Argm 
1 Vnn thTl^th of Feb -lid • " In relation to the choice we have only to 
::pe 't' h w: ha d^cd^^^^^ former occasions-that between the two 

promment clnd.dates, iMessrs. J.ckso. and Adams, a large major, y of the re- 
rbli^^s and of the Electors of this state, gave ^^^ ^o^ms the pre^renc.^ 
' Adams was elected in Feb. lS-25-he was, as Noah ^^^^^/^^^^'V^ ^^'^^^^ 
Buren's second choice. While Jackson's talents were ^'^^^^ 7;^' J"^,^;^^^^^^^ 
about the time when Adams formed h.s cabinet (same month), thus addressed 

'''^'"^"ave heard withm the h.w last days various ^--1^^'7 .^ ^[^J^^ 

dL-tr b- n= t^ ^^:^SEB 

Ta^s of the Michio-an Territory, as Secretary at War. W ith a ^/Dma/o^ea 
FAIL ?olT^£ltT THE CONi^DEN CE OF THE COUNTRY.- 

,. », .II,-- fy.a-nA^ wtfrp thiin (iBclarins their confidence in Adams and 

• At the very moment that Van Buren «"d h.. '^nemi' w^^^^^ would soon be in the ascend 

Clay, Clay's /,,/s. friend, KendaM, was berfmmug to pertene hu lac^MO p^j^„kf„rt, Ky. . 

ant. On Ihe 2nth of Feb., 182.% he thu. «^dres.ed Mr Cia>j.^W« ^^^,^,^ „,. j,^^ Presidential 

"Dear Sir-. Since the fnt'osed wiis wr.t en, we hdve r^^^^^^^^ nearly .o, approve the course 

election. It creates very lutle ^;e"«;.; '"".I'^^lf^-^,, '^^Vl mid n^ nnd several who were for you 

of our representat.on. Jackson s '^'^'"L, '/^nm-trv thf re will be a consider;ib\e stir ; but if the administration 
join them. I tho.lt in some se^^^^'iV , '^^nTirvonlv T ere is much inquiry whether you will be otTered 
isprudent, it will d.e away. J'P'^f."' ^^^Xm^crd vers.ty ot' om^^ ought to do if it U 

or will accept the Secretaryship of rotate ^""^ ;""\\';7^.;^^^^^^^^^ because it i-- impossible for us to know 

offered. It seems to "^^ 'hat n".mu here cari^^a^ ,^^ ^^^^^^^ „^, ,^^ p ,3 ,^, ^nd o. lour 

all the circumstances. Is "^"'^ "i'.^^ P'^""f^" "'>. "i.^„,.,„„,, with the expectation that he will succeed him in 
years 1 Will not Clinton unite his •"t^'^.^.tf " ''^ hpt„on"v.vel'u to withstand 7 Will not Adams, for his own 
the Presidency ; and will not such a '^'"''l"^ 'X, intTre"t ^ nci ow uothii.s! of these matters ; but on view- 
safety, retain Crawford, and th;>eby conc.l a ehi, m^^^^^^ '="< v j. ^ave flitted through my mind, 
ing at a distance the posture of men and paities, indicatea ny _^^^ ^^i^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ KENDALL." 
. „ ,:.„ T i».>rn thit Van Bureu's bargain with Jackson's frinnds— their IBU 
From a source I cannot as yet men ton ' 1^^,^" ."^^ ,,''Dec 1K6. lu that month ho e.xpected the friends of 
tual understanding, I m.ay as well call "• 'f^r= ''<"^,'" h^.^a Cambreleng are seen directins Hoyt to circulate 
Adam-! to attack him, and soon afterwards [t*^^- '«^;( /J® Carolina rSee N-s. 41, 4-2, 43, 43, 46, and 47], from 
can. Green's '^^^^^IJ^J^J^ Z.^ ce ves'.f lelr dLte'd "Charle'ston, s'. C, May 7, 18-27 ." and 

VIOLABLY TO SUBSERVE THE PhOl Lb or inc. ^^^^^ influential friend3,to re- 

C. Calhoun ha-, been prevailed upon, in conlormiti to '"y^'^"" "' j j^^^^e De VVitt Clinton to accept 
linquish his r:'-^'";VP;';,V^r„\.';i ^^tift^.*^ ervf: 'Ltf^U,;' of St "te tmd^ Gen. Jackson, and at the end of 
the Vice Presidency. Martin \ '^^ ^^^;f 'V^V j? p,-e-=idency with a perfect understanding that he will pur- 
^"^' I'^l^ ii'nnTHFl'N POUCY -^"1 *"'<^""^' improvements If I am 

Z, much Sorm^d, a^abinet" "so arranj-ed as to commaitd the greatest possible extent Jl political 

influence." ,„t Caihnnn nn thnir tickets— Jackson served eight years. With the»» 

Clinton died-the rival '^f"'^'^^ «^ P" .^,^','Xe 1™^^ ie'27--and "a political Grimalkin- purrU.g 



84 TIIK ALBANY REGENCY ON THE SAFETY FUND LAW. 



C H A P T K R XX. 

CrosxcU on the StiftJy Fund Law. — JJojiL-crnf/ Vesciibed by t/iosf u-ho iinJer- 
nloDdil. — Dcspcratt Ihmk Failiireti. — Ji'/tv SKlfi'icd bi/ fhviri. — Van Jiiiren''s 
Pruscr'iption in 1S29. — His Efforts to olttain Chailcrs in [S2S. — I'/ie Aryua 
and Butler Mnriuiir. — Mechanics and Fanmrs'' Juink, Al:)any. — The. Two- 
Third Rule at Fault. — CUnion'^s WarnnKin^ l.^lti and IS 16. — Hammond on 
N. Y. lianh'.mj. — Flaijq^ Wright and Earll cuininij Charters. 

ATiL EinviN Ci{(j.s',VHi,L of the Al'.uiny Argus, st-nl mc, in 183-1, a puniplilet 
ciititlfd " Orii.';iii, provisions and clll-ct of the Sallty Fund Law," with a request 
that 1 would notice it. For the first Lime, 1 have now given it a careful perusal. 
It professes to be a reply to Mr. U'alsh's Quarterly Review, the lleport of the 
Union Committee, and the strictures in Con2,ress on what is termed a dangerous 
political deception by Van Buren, under whose short government of ^aw York 
the fund and its commissioners were reconanended. The pam])hlet may be 
fairly assumed to be Van Euren's defence. It appeared, with high commenda- 
titMis in his press, the Argus, and was approvingly referred to by the presses 
controlled by bank democrats throughout the slate.* 

ill If^Ji). 'J'htit ycHi-, Aug. 8. he siiid in liis Patridt, " No iii;iii unites iiioie of tlie qnulitics of the hniiest, \\\i- 
rialit, Mild hIiIo st.itesiii:iii, than John Qiiinty Adams. iMr. Adams' taloiits ;iro lilted solely to ruin in a repuli- 
lic. litcaii^e riiiublicmi govermiient i;aii only lie sustained liy iiite^iily Hod plMJii dealintr." In 1&2\, Hill went 
for (Vnuford. his nanvi<ni, and the minority caucus — lint, said he, Al:iy, ]Ki!4, " Shoni<l he [CrawllinlJ not he 
elei'tei!, we ran trust our exeeutivo deiiartuieiit in the hands ol' Adams or <>'hiy. 1 wish I conid sav the siinie 
nrtJiMK-ral .laiksori. ****** We ilti not like to lie liauKi'd uilliniit rhyme or reason." 'Bylr'J7<ir 
■•J'', Isaac Ind veered round to Jackson, and in due time Jackson was ' ihe democracy," and (Jlay and Adams 
alioiit as liiiil men as Isiiac knew of anywhere. Uii, wlial lat contr.acts Isaac ;;ol wiieii he turneii : 

* TiiK Deprn'ck Of THE SAFETY FuND L.4W, .<^o calk'd, to \vliicli Mr. Croswell had tlais 
rf<iiiostcJ mv attention, tneiition.s, that prior to Van Biucn's .sliort administration, in 18'ii), there 
\ntd l)eeii (Wsperatf liank taikuvs — that the banlc.'; had paid in only jiart of their capital at start- 
in;;, and that the ilir>'ciurs i^-dve " littk' or no further guaranty for lite faiiliftil execiaion of their 
triLst than the olilii^ation to pay their debts in sjiecie" — ^tliat in some ca.ses paymcnls on shar^ps 
liad been made in specie, the money witlidrawn a^'ain, and n.jtes of lir.ml substituted, with nu 
other security tlian the unpaid .shares held by the paity — tiie fraudulent banks had thu.s {^one 
inU) oj)cration, anil v.iien failure followed, the capital was found to consist of the Avorthle.ss 
notes of woitldess individuals — that tlie fViWi/s/tr lei^iskttive ) ov/cr u) tict as bankers, issue 
paper as nionev, c'ce., conferred In' law on such banlv.'^, had induced lioncst people to take their 
no'cs fir |a-()pcrly and hibor, and deposit mr.ney with their rascally manai^crs, wlio generally 
plac'.'J their jilunler, thus acquired, licyond the reach of the creditois of tlie instilnlions. 

If retl-renec be made to niy account "of the Hudson Bank, the t-ld Kuti'alo Rank, the Wash- 
in'^inn and Wai ren Danlc, the Bank at Pltittsbiirf^)), and similar institutions, in this volume; 
and to Prosper M. Wctinoiv and P. W. Spicfr's United States Lombard Co., the Mortis Canal 
BiMik, 'i'rade.-mcn's ]^>anlv, Fulton Bank, the Lifl- and Fire Co., ( "iu'mical Bank, and (rthcr 
kinirt'd euifcrn'--, notice 1 in my Lives of lioyl and Butler; as abn to iliereporied hank frauil 
trials of IH-lCi, of which Noah and Webb apjiear lo leuiin a recollection, when s]ieakin,i( of 
Presidrnt Polk's Navy Aj^ent, Prosper M. Welinotc lpnires^2-3l and '2-2'^]. the reader will .see 
ihat Ihc public had liccn so cheated liy Van Biircii and his adhcrcals. thcii' exclusive lefjfisla- 
lioii. !'i:ien charters, and dishonest bank aiifcnls, thai ihc iiy wa-- loud ami universal for an 
clii'icni check upon such accumulaled wron.^'s. 

So f.ir were V;in Burcii, Wrii^hi, Buder, Flaj^i;:, Cro.swell, and. the party in power, from 
desiriri'/ to clie<k ch;ir;er i^raniiiiL,' (a disy:raee and a scandal as ihcy ever have been to the 
honored cause ofpojttdar i(overnin'jiiT), tluit they did their very best in the ;ession of IH'JH (oidy 
months befire), lo ptiss throuc^h the Ic.^'i.slaliire of tlie .'•tate, \\ithout any new check orrefiirm 
whale vc r, a variety of rene Wills of hanli charters — ami when Pniller was defeated by the reluctance 
t>f two-ihirds of the mejiibers any lomicr lo counlctumce the oilioiis sysicni, \'an Biiicn came 
out ihrou.'/h his Aiea s, aiul vilihed liic luo-thirds clause in the consliliilion of IH'Jl. When it 
becam'" ap|)arent tluit some concession must be made to ])ublie sentiment, the inoclc-j^iiaranty of 
die Safety Fund Uiibhle was inlrodiiced by Van Buren, as a .-cheme invented by Joshua 
Foriian, an old li'lerali-l of ( )n(Mid;ii;a. It pretend.ed to make the banks enter ink) a sort of 
mutu.il av iiiaiicr the euninii-:ioner clause enabU'i! the executive to pry intft tlie concerns of 



TIIK SAFETY FUND A TRICK TO OBTAIN MORE BANKS. 85 

When wt; look back upon the dishoii'.'st b;iuk legislation of V an iiuren, But- 
ler, Wright, Barker, Tiiroop, iNliircy, and their iViend^b, ]):evious to 1829, and 
compare it witii this parly account; and then look tbrvvard to i.s37, and so up 
to IS-II, at Van Burea, Cainbreleiig, Bowne, Butler i: Co , denounciu"- as vile 
and infamous the fabric artfully reared in 1829, we are compelled to aumil that 
the chief actors in tlie continued knavery of the last twenty years, must ieel a 
degree of contempt for the people they liave so successfully deceived, beyond 
anything to bj met with on the records of monarchy, from the days of John 
Law to those of Cornelius W. Lawrence, C. C. Camlireleiig, and Benjamin F. 
Butler. 

Tlie pamphlet, or rather Van Buren, Wright, Croswcil, ^:c., went on truly to 
state, that when a stockjobber (like Hoyt or Cambrelcng) had got hold of a ([uan- 
tity of shares of one of these moonshine banks, and aided in rilling it, he could 
" hypothecate " his shares, raise cash on them, join a couipany ot adventurers 
like himself, purchase as many of the shares of a sound, well managed bank 
as would secure the control of it, by the eleption of Bullerizing directors, and 
then push as many of the notes of the bank out among the people as possible, 
get as many deposits as they could, issue the post notes, or promises to pay at 
a distant time, of the bank, for money or property, sell out their shares at an 

any bank — and it lulled the people into a false security, out of w'.nch ihe .-tuckjobbLT aaJ [loli- 
tical sla;^-e manager reaped an abiuidant harvest of ill-goLteu wealth. It was becaase nut one 
cliarter could be got in 18-2(i, 18-27, and ]8'28, in cuusequence of tae two-thiid rule, that the 
sleek })arty leader opened his biid'^et in 182l>, with the panacea ot'a saL't;/ fiuid. 

In ld3t. Van Buren and his tbiluwers ))i'etended that the Saiei/ Fund Law ni" 1829 was in- 
tended as a ])roteetion to the pe )ple. Hel'ore believing- that. tale, be pleased to listen to iVlr. 
Martin Van Buren, -a t'other side of the question. 1 quote tlie Albany Art,Mis of April 8, 1828: 

•' We ltai.1 supposed that the question as to the expediency of a renewad of the .solvent e.\'ist- 
ing ehartei's was conceded. Whether this be so or nut, it appears to be uri^e<l by strony consi- 
derations of ju.stiee to the institutions and security to the public li is oncetied that Batiks, 
with due liinitaiioii'-; as to their iiuinberj. have become .so ideutitied with oiu' curii;iic\', and our 
basine.-^s transactions, as to be iudisjiensable. And the question ii.)w is, whetiier it is .safer to 
recliarter old and sjtvent Banks, whica have pas.sed thro'.ii,^! the iJrst period of their iiicoipoia- 
tions advanta.i^eously to theiuselves and to the public, autl which are known and conlkied in, 
or to break up the old foandations, a/i:/ os -riiKia rli.vs bimno i.v A kJCORE Oil 'I'WO Ol-' 
NEW BANtvS, untried, unknown, possibly in irre.spun.sible hands, aral (pie.>-lionable as to 
their sulveiicy or the character they may su.stain '] To this qtie.stion there is an ea.sy answer; 
and the only dillerencc of opinio:) probably is as to the time and manner of t!ie renewal. As to 
the time, wnat period more tavjrable than the present 1 It will not betray a hazardous or unne- 
cessary haste, iv.'i.ils/, i/. ifitl ar.iii.i/ I.'l: cri/s iif If. iirar 'ippraa'-h to llic c.rixruJ'ihi of Ike c/uirlcrs. 
* * * * * So fully convinced was the legislature of MassachuseUsot tlie iui'iiortance to the pub- 
lic interests and the stability of the institutions, that /'/. voi.rN'TKKRKn t.i rkmow. /hk/ ,/iJ rmcu- 
Ih' rh'irkr.i „J the IJ^ui.'.s in. that .st,it; SIX Oil SEVEX YEARS tufarr the luiut ',>] nir„ri>i,ri,tion 
ha.t expired. Delay, indeed, may serve the int 'rests of the lobl)y, Ir.il can scarcely jao.note the 
interests of the community. ***** We have no interest in the renewal ol' any (diartcr, 
beyond what every citi/en has," &c. 

The Mechanics and Farmers' Banlc at Albany, to who.se manager, T. W. Olcott, Butler's 
letters and the Safety Fund give additional notoriety, \i'as incorporated in 181 1, the moineiit the 
old U. S. Bank charter was vetcK'd by the casting vote of Gov. Olinton. At thew times, bank 
dividends w..'re otten 'J to 18 per cent., and the premiums on ■privil<.!j:e(l stock 20 to :!3 per ceiii. 
This ixink was obtained on the j)lausible pretext of benefiting farmers and mechanics, and the 
president and a majority k)1 the tiirei;tors were requiretl to be meclianii-s. Solomon Soutlnvick 
was the lirst president, and Gorham A. Worth, the cashier. Wurilfs jMiclry is noticed liy Butler 
(page lOoJ), and Jacob Barker speaks of him as a friend (page r,)2). He is now, I believe, the 
cashier ot a bank in this city. In due time the M. and F. fell into ilegency hands, and Maicy's 
father-in-law, Benj. Knower, became its president. When KiH)wer stopped payment, in 18ol, 
Van Buren's succe.-;soi' in the U. S. Senate, 0. E. Dudley, sticceeded him. This Banlc litis been 
always identitiei.1 with Van Buren's interests, and his son John v as a director taid the btink 
attorney ti>r it in \\<M\ or 18;{7. 

in Akseinbly, Maivh 11*, 1828 (says tlic Argus), Mr. Butler called for the thiid iradiiig of the 
bill to renew the Mechanics and Farmers' Bank in the city of Albany. Mr. A. Mann, . I,., 
ile-sired to add a clause aliecting the liability of stockholders^ but was not permitttd. To j,;:sv= 



86 ANOTHER VIEW OF NEW YORK CHARTER GRANTING. 

advaiice, perhaps, on their original purchase money, and having exchanged the 
credit of the banii lor .substantial wealth in every shape, borrowed out its capi- 
tal, and all the wealth that could be raised on its credit, retire from the wreck, 
and allow it to blow up and engulph the worthy and the good, the unsuspecting 
and unwary. Reports to the legislature were found to be deceptive, millions 
were plundered from the community, and in some cases the plan was to divide 
the funds of the bank among the (few) stockholders, as pretended profits, when 
in fact there were none to divide. This enal)led them to sell their worthless 
shares for a goodly sum, as of a flourishing concern, well conducted. All was fraud ; 
but so linked in with the system was the administration of justice — (there 
were Marcys, John Van Burens, Hoyts, W. VV. Van Nesses, &.c., in those days) 
— that if any rascal was prosecuted, he could atlbrd, from his plunder, thou- 
sands of dollars for defence ; and what with getting clear through tiaws, through 
new trials, through appeals, through a brother knave on the jury, whose con- 
science could not convict, the law was inoperative, a.s respects 99 in 100. Cases, 
says the official pamphlet, "of each of the classes above mentioned, had actu- 
all}^' occurred, exhibiting scenes of fraud and corruption, the details of which 
were spread before the community through the reports of our criminal courts, 
WHICH FOR A LOJNti TIME WERE CROWDED WITH CAUSES OF 



the bill, 67 members voted, Butler, Cargill of N. Y., Michael Hotiman, Savage, Verplanck, &c. j 
against it there were 37 votes. General Porter, Spencer, Fillmore, &c. Not rwo-thirds — lost. 

On the 8th ot April, tlie Assembly was in conunittee on renewing old bank charters and 
granting ne^v ones. It was proposed to make the stockholders ot banks individuallj' lespousible 
to donble the amount ol' their shares, but Butler, Cargill, Dayton, Faulkner, and Hofiinan, 
opposed the clause. Butler said he would take the new charters thus buithened, as a lesser evil 
than no renewals, but would vote down individual responsibility if he could. On the 10th, it 
was voted dowai, by Butler, Cargill, Dayton, Faulkner, Hoftinan, ik.<\ 

IMessrs. Butler and Hoffman voted lor special charters to some banks with, and to others with- 
out the responsibility clauses. Any way to get them. On the 16th, the Assembly in commit- 
tee of the whole, passed bills to renew the Franklin Bank and the Tradesmen's Bank, N. Y., 
and the Catskill Bank ; also ten new bank charters to be located at Kinderhook, Whitehall, 
&.C. I believe the v/hole batch got swamped, and that charters were laid over till the new era 
of Van Buren and Reform (!) in 1829. 

The following extract tells the feelings of the bank Democrats, in April, 1828 : 

(From the Albany Argus, April 14, 18'28.] 

" The Bank Charters. — The final question was taken in the Assembly, on Saturday, on the 
" bills for the renewal of the charters of the Geneva and Ontario Banks, and the Bank of New 
" York, and they were severally lost ; the former being deficient by three, and the latter by four 
'• votes, of a constitutional majority [8b]. It .seems to be an unequal constitutional rule, which 
" dcclaies a vote to be in the negative, notwithstanding more than three to one of t/ie members 
" PRESENT are in the affirmative ; u/id it is particularti/ uvfortunat-e to come so near and yet to 
" fail." 

Van Buren, Yoimg, Wright, and their friends, had had very early lessons of the dangers 
to liberty, attending the vicious sysjeui uf banking, which obtained in this state. In a letter 
to the republicans of tlie slate, tlaled Albany, April o, 18UG, and signed by De Witt Clinton, 
Natlianiel Pitcher, John Cramer, Caleb Tompkins, Clarkson Crolius, R. Riker, Joloi M'Lejin, 
Jolm Herivimer, John Taylor, Alex. Sheldon, Benjamin Ferris, and other members ol the 
Legi.slalure, they tell the people — ' You turned with di.sgu.st from the .scene of bribery and 
" corruption by which the Mkrchant.s' Bank in the city of N. Y., secured its charter. If the 
" representatives of the people can, wiih impunity, receive or oli'er bribes, :he virtue of our 
" government is blasted. If wc permit its purity to be .stained, we pave the way to destroy its 
" icspect in the eyes ol nil good men. We shake the basis of our republican establishments, 
" and lay the foundation whereon is built the corrupt governments ol tlie ancient world.' 

In Jan., 1818, Governor Clintoji .solemnly warned the people of the danger;; they were 
bringing on the country, through the vicious mode of transacting banking business, which 
Van Buren and his pupils had continually fostered. The Assembly appointed an honest, 
faitbful coiiHiiittce, to whose able and u.selul report 1 would be glad to give a place here. 
'I'hcir chaiiiiian, Isaac Pierson, was also directed to propose a resolution for a joint committee 
of the legislature lo iaiquire into the management of the aflairs of tiie bank.-j, wliether their 
lunds had been improperly applied, or their agents or directors been guilty of improper or 



FLAGG, WRIGHT, EARLL, AND CO. CHARTER GRANTING. THEIR VICTIMS. 87 

THAT CHARACTER HUNDREDS OF OUR UNSUSPECTING CITI- 
ZENS WERE THE VICTIMS OF SUCH CONSPIRACIES; and lohen 
f^l L^^Ae^/™L L been ruined by the frauds of these villains in the 
l^^nrge^^nTco^p^-^^ insMons, and appealed to the law to ^-;9.then.t. 
Zittd puniikmel such turned out to be the f -i^-^.-Sc^E^^^^^^^^^ 
nations, and such the influence of the accused, AND THEIR J>l^<-ijl^ ^ AbJ^ i 
TORS Zt public justice herself seemed to be almost set at defiance - This state 
of thingrwe are to^ld, induced Governor Van Buren when state physicmn in 
chief, to prescribe his grand nostrum of the Safety Fund Law. 

,T^nXi<, nractices for covenous or oppressive purposes, and whether they had paid their bills in 
SLTy SSJS^to'Ihrcharters.o^^^ so. The report of the comauttee, and the 

^^.ThTc'^rir^eS?^^^^^^^^^^^^ pHncipally consists of the nc.es 

of those baTkTwhose nominal capiuls are small, and composed pnncipally of the notes of he 
fndivTdual stockholders, called stock-notes : so that the security of the public consists of the 
rTrrvIte fo t™ ofrndi^idual stockholders, and those fortunes, m a great measure, consist of 
fhe stSk of "he bank. Their influence too frequeuUy, nay oft. n. already beguis i'\f^l^'l 
me siocK oi "'': „itr,apther alanmncr and unless some judicious remedy is provided by the 
E5XSr4T£lltjon feness attempts to cUtrol all selections to oihce in our 
Sties n^? the eections to this very legislature. Senators and viembers of assembly wdl be 
T^^h^lnnk^forthekseais in this caviM, and thus the wise ends of our civil m^itutums mil 

rious poSn has already take/deep root, and requires immediate legislative interterence with 

'^QeSRooflnd Messrs. Meigs, Edwards, and Sharpe, made able speeches for inquiiy, 
bn?Mr Oak?ev oppo ed it The resolve was adopted, 70 to 30, and sent to the Senate, ^.^ere 
?hev^er?caSfur protecting the knavery of Washington and War^n, Buftalo, Hudson, 
SsTi^r-h InHher rotten banks of the Van Buren family Van Buren denounced m- 
nuirveffectuaUy crushed the Assembly's resolve and protected the banks in their villany, 
Seir insolvency and the breaking uown of many others of like character, closed the scene. 
For proofXSrinted journals of the Senate of aN. Y. Look also into the secret corres- 
nnnf^nce of Van Buren, Butler, Hoyt, Barker, &c. , , , e .\, u-n 

^ '' D^?n° the November session [1824], a complaint was made that the passage of the bill 
for chartering [the Chemical bank of New York], had been procured by corrupt means. An 
nvestieation was ordered, and a committee appointed with power to send tor persons and 
mreSS evidence giVen before the committee afforded a most disgusting pictuie of the 
SeSity of the members of the legislature, and indeed, I might say, of the degradation of 
human nature itself The attempt to corrupt, and in fact, corruption itself, was not confined 
to Anyone party. It extended to individuals of all parties, and itisnot improbable that the m- 
lereS of members in these applications for moneyed incorporations had an eftect on the political 
action of some of them. Mr Caldwell, a mtness, testified that he heard a senator say, I am 
a Crawford man to^ay, but unless the Chemical Bank passes, I shall be a peoples man to- 
morrow.' In short, it was evident that the foul and sickening scenes ot 1812, had been re- 
enacted in 1824." — Hammond, vol. i., p. 178. , ,i, o . 

The old bank of Rochester, chartered 1824, was a regency favorite. It passed the Senate, 
Feb 16 1824 and among the yeas were our present Governor, Silas Wright, Jonas Earll, 
canal commissioner, John Cramer, Charles E. Dudley, Heman J. Redheld, and Jcjur Bow- 
man In the Assembly, 30th Jan., it was votai for by A. C. Flagg, our comptroller^ Mr. Flagg 
Sso voted for the Fulton Bank, N. Y., that year ; as in the Senate, April 1, 1824, did Sila^ 
Wright Ja-sper Ward, Jonas Earll, Jr., John Leffert-s, and Perley Keyes This histoij of that 
charter is before the world. On same dav, in Senate, the Long Island Bank pa.ssed by the 
votes of Silas Wright, Jasper Ward, C. E. Dudley, Jonas Earll, Jr Perley Keyes, and Farraiid 
Stranahau In the Assembly, A. C. Flagg, not having made up his mind, absented himself 



till the voting was over. 



Did vou ever see a cat watch a mouse, reader •? Just so will the little countiy bank duector, 
who has lent cash to a farmer on the mortgage of his place, watch hun. SLxty day renewals, 
mth fresh meals of interest, are an eating moth. The speculation fails— the note is now as big 
as half the value of the farm— the Daniel S. Dickensoa of the law tightens the screws— the fann 
is ihe banker's, and its owner on his way to Iowa. 






88 VAN BUREN GOVERNOR. WHAT THEN HAPPENED. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Governor Van Buren for more JJanks, and acja'wst them. — Judge Furmans report. 
— Dividhuj the spoih. — Blair gues for more Baidcs. — Webster on the Pets. — 
Ifiroop succeeds Ian Buren. — tlubbelCs Prophecies.— -Chandler Siarr on their 
Fulfillment. — The. Safeti/ Fund Scheme a Fraud on the Co.intnj. — General 
George P. Barker. — A'larcy on the Buffalo Bank. — .Bank officers tried for 
Felony. — How JJcquitted. 

At the opening of the legislatui-e of 1829, [Jan. 7] Governor Van Buren 
said a great deal about banks,* but very little about education. One paragraph 
of his message was in these words : 

g^ " To dispense with Banks altogether is an idea which seeins to have -^^^ 
gt^ no advocate; and to make ourselves wholly dependent on those =^ 
(J[^^ established by federal authority deserves none. ]f these are correct ^CjJ) 
^i^* views, the only alternative would seem to be, between a renewal of the "^ 
^f^ charters of the sound part of the existing Banks, or to anticipate the ^^ 
{jf^ winding up of these concerns by the incorporation of new institutions." '^:^ 

When a few steps higher up preferment's ladder, he wrote Sherrod Williams 
jn 1836, " I have always been opposed to the increase of Banks."! 

• On the lotli of .laimary, ISiD, Van Buren wrote .Tndsro rormnn, rit New Vork, fur a pnpular version of U'n 
plan, soni his rc(|ii(rst tliroiijsh Jesse Hoyt [sec No. 1G2,J and on lli(> -'7tli laid it l>y niMMa^re before tlie li'j.islaiurc. 
Ne.Tl &\y ll appi'iiri'd in the Ar^ns, and the impression Is irrcsi^iihle, ihat llie sclu'rne lor passing a hatch of new 
and old hanks, to suit favorite interests, was, like Throop's siuxi'ssiou, and VVestrrvelt's "};reiit salvation," li 
matter of har^ain and :;ood nnderstandin^ hetween Van Buren, "JIimiii. 'I'liroup, .\Iarcy, Mast;, and ciMlain of the 
pariy ltnder.s, at Herkimer, in Sopiemher, l&i^. Fornian puis forwani his plan as of " a cuinniuniiy soinetliin>; 
at'ter tlie manner of onr federal union— with a supervision over tlie whole, as perfect and more heneticial for llie 
public THAN Tii\T OKA OKNKRAL iiANK OVER ITS BRANcijKS." ilow Van Huren'sscliiiiie operated — how tliifchar- 
terM were got— the slock distributed — wlio the men wore who were most active in procuiui; charters — wlio and 
what the cuminissionors wen — wiiat proj)ortiond of stork went to le^'isiators tind pronfneni patriots, like Olcot , 
Miircy, Flaj.'^, Vanderpool. Dix, Wri}.'lit, Lawrence, Butler, Croswell, Torter, CornlM.', B'ekinaii, (JdiiIiI, Vimihl', 
and Faulkner, or to men of straw lor thi'ni— and wheiher tliose who pniiitiMl l)y ilie>e safety fund sjieculatious 
were not le.i;^iied to;;ei!ieras Rejency suppoiters, both before and after IS.?!) — lliesi; areqn siionsllril could best be 
answered by a special work on N. Y. r.-iiikinu, wiiicii would show in detail how the c''.arte;s were lo;;-rolle!, 
and for and l)y whum. Such a work would be the Black Book of the ]-^mpire Stale in niiht earnest. IJr. Max 
w> 11, a lejjisl.iior, addressed Zeno AIIi:n the postmaster of t<ackett'.s Harbor, by letter, da'cd .Mbaiiy, Jan. 7, l.'^SJ, 
tlius "Dear Judue— Yours just received. There are more applications for hanks this year than evir before. 
You must make out a complete list of directors, oliicers, &c., and if obtained you must know now. It must be a 
Jackson Bank ; and the Bank junto in this place, must be allowed a linger in the pie. 

Yours, truly, Pit. Maxwkm.." 

liarge fortunes have heen made by apportioning the stock of new banks to favorites and foltowerii of the gov- 
ernment. Van Buret! wished that corrupt power to be retained. In his January Iiless:i!».', he said, " Wiio are 
th* particular recipients of your favor is a matter of minor importance. The number of I'le stockholders, in cnrn- 
paxison witli the creat body of the people, is so verv small, and llie stock is so roiistanily chanfiinp hands, that 
TIIK EQUrrV OF ITS ORDINAL. DISTRIBUTION bccome.i a compuratire/y vnimnurtniU mnttrr " That 
is to say, leave tin! p.trty to select the comniii'sioners to distribute the sft)ck, sind lea\e the distribution to the 
commissioners. Perhaps the premiums paid from 1821) to 1839, on bank stock, sold by the orifiinal favorites of 
the parly, yielded them from two to three millions of dollars. All llii.s, says Van Buren, is comparatively 
unimportant. 

t This volume allimis ivbundant evidence that Blair was Van Uurcn's confederate, ami the Globe his mouth- 
piece — Blair and Van Buren admit that. Turn to the <^lobe of Dec. 21, 1833, and you will find the follouin-; 
imracraph, promising a large crop of banks without any safety fund to protect their ciislomers : 

"This new coalition, however, have labored in vain. The intelligent jieojile of l he West know how to 
maintain their right.'* and independence, and to repel oppression. Although foiled in the beginning, every 
Western State is about to establish a State banking institution. They are resolved to a\ail themselves of their 
own Suite credit as well as of the national credit to maintain a currency independent of foreign control. Mr. 
Clay's presses in Kentucky begin now to feel how vain are all their eflorts to resist this determination of the 
people in the West. The Louisville (Kentucky) Herald says : ' From tlie indications of public opinion, as con- 
tained in the jiapers from the HUites around us, there is every probability that banks w ill be chartered in the 
Slates of Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri, and that ellijrts will be liiade to charter in this State (Kentucky) nut only 
u State bank, with fonr or five branches, but several independent banks.' " 

Highly approving of this promi.sed crop of state banks, the niol>e comliules by saying — " So Ohio, Indiana, 
IIIIboIs, Mis.i<jnrl, and Kentucky, are resolved to take care of themselves, and no longer depend on the kiml 
guardianship of Fiiddle, Clay, and Co." And Ohio did take care of herself by chartering ut that same session 



VAN BTJREN, THROOP AND WEBSTER, ON THE N. Y. BANKS. 



8d 



When he had worked his way to the Capitol, and become President of the 
Republic, he attempted to show that inland banks were dependent on tiiosc of 
New York, where the produce is sent and from whence the merchandize is re- 
ceived, and discoursed in one of his messages to Congress after this fashion ; 

" But this chain ol" dependence does not stup here. It does nol teiuiiiiatc at Philadelphia or 
New York. It reaches across the ocean, and ends in London the centre of the credit system. 
The same laws of trade whicli i^^ave to the banks in our principal cities, power over the whole 
bin!dn<c system of the United States, subject the former in then- turn, to the money power of 
Great Britain. It is not denied that the suspension of the New York banks in 1837, whieli 
was followed in quick succession throughout the Union, was produced by an application of 
that power; and it is now alleged in extenuation of the present condition of so large a por- 
ti m of our kinks, that their embarrassments have arisen Irom the same cause. From this in- 
tl'ience they cannot now entirely escape, for it has its oi'igin in tlie credit currencies of the 
two coutnries ; it is sticngthened bv the current of trade and exchange, which centres in Lon- 
don, and is rendered almost irresistible by the large debts contracted tliere by our nierchants, 
our banks, and our States. It is thus that an intixidnction of a new bank into die most dis- 
tant of our villages, places the business of that village within the influence ol the money 
power in Em^land. It is thus that every new debt which we contract in that country, seriou.s- 
ly nll>cts onr own currency, and extends over the pursuits of our citizens its powerful in- 
tiueui'e." 

On the 12th of March, Van Buren abdicated in favor of his lieutenant, Enos 
T. Throop, one of the most thoroughgoing U. 8. Bank men in the state. He 
had voted for the bank in Congress in 1816, and resolutely defended it every- 
where. " If ample talents,^^ said Van Buren, about Throop, " and a sound dis- 
ci iminat\n<j jiuUjmvnt — if integrity and singleness of put pusc, and. truhj repub- 
lican pnncijdes furnish any just ground for expecting a safe adudnist rat ion of 
the qoi-ernment, that expectation, I am persuaded^ may, in the present instance, 
be fully indulged.''^ Throop had to reply, of course ; and the journal tells us, 
that he arose in his place in the Senate, and, among other things, declared he 
was for banks, and plenty of them. " Their iniluence upon productive industry 
.... have been more beneficial than the most sanguine projector could have 
anticipated," said Throop. 

On the 19th of March, Mr. Hubbell, in the assembly, rose to oppose the 
bank bill of the Van Buren party.* His speech 1 fin<l in the New York Even- 
ki' lur I.p;:isliiliiri!, I lielicvf, eleven new l)anks, wuh an ;ii;!,'regate capit:!! of about Imir millions— the pet 
liaiik piirty liaviimu miijnrity in both brunches. 

Wcli-lcr, ill reply to a delence of the Pets and .S.ifety Fund, by Governor Wright, in Senate, March 20, 1834, 
thus e\p.K0il the artAil net into wliich pretended patriots liad, spider-liite, enticed the tanners and inanulac- 
turcrs ot' New York : 

•■ I'.ike all tlie bulks in the country which have lieen incorporated since the Safety P'und system was estnb- 
li^hed, and can the gentleman mention one wliich has not been studiously and desijinedly placed in Ihe hands 
of polilical I'riends ! Is there, now-a-ilavs, any such thing as obtainin!,' a btnk charter from Ihe Le|:islature of 
New York, without coiiuuissioners, nanied in the act it-elf, to distribute the stock; and is there any one in 
slance, in which a majorilv of shares is not allotted to men of one particular political parly 1 Will the fen- 
tlenian say, that ahundrc.'l of the first merchants of New York, or .\lbtiny, or Utic-t. or Bullalo, could this day 
iibtain a charter, for themselves, and their associates ; the stock to he divided as they mi;:ht choose 7 I am 
ulto'^ether misiiiforiiied if any such thin;; cctiild be expecteil. With us, and I suppose elsewhere, bankini; is 
Hit uioiMipolv. (-'(Tlain L'ciiera! laws re;;ulite the whole business, and one class of perscnis has the same right, 
and ilie saii'ie facility, in applying for and receiving charters as others, if they confori)^ to the general law, 
and show a pr.ibible nicessity lor the institution which they ask for. No(|uesiion is asked .--s to what school 
or \vhat partv the applicants belong ; and this is as it sliould be. To place all bank circulation, and bank uc- 
c.mmial vlioa, and b;uik intlnence, into puiy h aids, to be used for party purposes, would be, and is, if siicU ii 
thing .mywhere exists, an enormity, worthy only of the worst governments." 

* I'lie Safjty Fmul Commis-sitmers, Chandler Starr, Trumbull C'ary, &-:., in their report of 
.Tan. :}0, 1813, show how correct Mr. Hubbell's views were in lH2i>. I'hey assure the legisla- 
iine of their utter inability to prevent the plunder of banks by tlie negligence of directors and 
1 ogueiy of cashiers, or the villainy of both combined. 1. Because it is difficult, and often 
impossible, by the exercise of tlie greatest vigilance, to compel a bank to suspend till it is 
hopelessly insolvent. 2. Until a bank has violated a ptisitive law, it is usually boycmd their 
powe's (if intorf.n-ence, through an application for a cliancery injunctinn. 3. 1'hough the 
management is very iniprovideni, the loans made in large sums to a few favorites, or badly 
secured and very doiihtfu! — though the olJicers may be the principal borrowers, and the mana- 
geis evidently hazarding the capital of a bank, yet the commissioners dare not interfere. 4 



90 WHIG COMMISSIONERS AND VAN BUREN's SANDY HILL FUND. 

ing Post, reported from the Albany Argus. He was convinced that the bank 
fund would prove only a splendid premium orti^red to dishonesty and fraud — 
that many expedients would be resorted to by tlie managers of a corrupt insti- 
tution, in failing circumslances, to push as many of their bills into circulation 
as posjiible, the whole banking capital of the state being pledged for the redemp- 
tion. He wanted to guard the honest stockholder, infants, widows, aged per- 
sons retired from business who iuid their funds in the banks, but this scheme 

" It is true tliat an ifijunction will be gianled when the luin of the Lank has Leen con.sunimated 
by actual insolvenry, or in eases where half the eapital stuck has been lust." 5. But these 
facts must be sworn to, as facts actually known tu the cuiinuissiuaers, ur proved i>u oath by 
others. 6. Even if a well founded belief of insolvency is the result of an investigatiun by the 
comuii.vsioners, Chancellor Walworth carries the matter lu a future day, and this alibrds time 
to the bank olticers to give preferences to those they may desire to favor, and to substitute 
worthlei--s paper, or paper at long dates, for notes at short dates and well secured. The bank 
capital is oi'rm placed " in the liands of reckless and unprincipled managers, and unrestrained 
by either iiiviral or legal obligation." 7. Examinations of banks take place but once in four 
months — the commis.sioner has often little knowledge of the debtors or of the real value of the 
other funds—" he is precluded from disclosing the names of the debtors," and has to believe 
whatever the managers may tell him. Even if the information is sworn to, it is not worth 
much. 8. " The selection of President and capable Directors must, of necessity, constitute 
the ereat .safeguard of bank stockholders "—BUT THESE CONSIDERATIONS' SELDOM 
INFLUENCE THE STOCKHOLDERS IN THEIR CHOICE. 9. Officers and managers 
put in, arc fortilied by proxies, whicli keep them in. They liave lost much of late by specu- 
lating unwisel}'. 

"Wnat a commentary on that gram! humbug, the Safety Fmid Law, by which false swearing 
is declared to be perjury, and the exhibition of false books, or entries, to the commi.ssioners, a 
felony ! ! Justice to the guilty is a mockery, and even Benjamin Butler sneers at the idea of 
calling the laiaves to account. Is this, can it be, free, enlightened, democratic America *? The 
America of my eai ly dreams it surely is not. 

In 183G, George P. Barker was elected to the Assembly from Erie County, to electioneer for 
the charter of the City Bank of Buffalo. He did so, and obtained it, through the votes of 
Senators .T. and L. Beardsley, Armstrong, Gansevoort, Coe S. Downing, Griltin, Hubbard, J. 
Hunter, Geo. Hujitinglon, H. F. and J. P. Jones, Lacy, Lawyer, Livingston, Lounsberry, E. 
('. Mack, tlie party printer, Maison, Segcr, the ex-clerk of assembly. Van Schaick, D. Wager, 
Steiling and Spiakt-r. Samuel Vuuiig, with Loomis, James Powers (see page 70), and one 
or two more, formed the oppusitiun. Prosper M. Wetmore was its supporter in tlic Assembly, 
and also the supporter of almost every other bank asked for. Polk sticks to him as Navy 
Agent here, like a brother. Van BureiVs followers had their share of the plunder, by agree- 
ment. One jnominent operator (Corning, I think), had ;8;:i(),0UU of tin- stock, and when 
the bank- failed, the Argus had the assurance to call the concern a "whig bank party" 
" machine." 

Fiom tirst to last. General George P. Barker, abolitionist, Canadian Patriot, stockjobber, 
and Van Buren's steady tool, was a director of the City Bank— he was also its attorney, 
transacting its law business. John B. Maty, another ex-Van Buien man, was the first presi- 
dent, and he and his partner, Isaac S. Suiith, the loco-foco candi<late for Governor, abstracted 
and lent themselves nearly S1'''0,00U of the funds of the bank; their .securities were .sold ai 
BnHalo last Nov. for less than S-,000— ;ftr»'2,000 of discounte.l bills brought $ 1,-00— judgments 
in favur of the bank fur S235,(K)0, were sold for S-il,r)OU. Until Nov. lKi\>, the Safety Fund 
Commissioners reported the bank to be sound and healthy, though it was even then utterly 
worthless— so loo, the state authorities had lent it more than ftl 00,000 of the public fund.s — 
a dead lo.ss. The bank had not only issued the extra allowance of its notes mentioned in the 
statutes, but also many thousands of dollais beyond the legal limit —and when Marcy was 
named as its receiver, he swore that not only wuukJ over $iiOO,000 of its notes be redeemable 
out of the state treasury, but that " it is supposed that a still larger amount of the frauclulcnt 
issues of that bank ihaii is already redeemed is lurking yd in recesses only known to its cor- 
rupt managers." 

Isaac S. Smith, in an olKcial letter to Filzwilliam Byrdsall, and others, dated Buffalo, Septem- 
ber Onth, l83tj, a month or two after the City Bank was sel atlost there, thus proclaimed the faith 
that was in him : 

" None of our institutions," said Isaac, " have so strong a tendency to create and perpetuate 
"the odious distinrlions between the rii;h and the poor, as the paper money banks. 
" Those incoiporalioiis, and others not more meritoritius, and yet equally monopolizing, have 
" been the greatest cause of truckling and corruption in legislation- The worst feature in the 
"proceedings of past legislators, has been the wasteful appropriation of large sums, o.stensibly 



dARKSR, LEE, EATON, AND THE BUFFALO BANKS. 91 

left the confiding stockholder without remedy, when a failure took place. He 
had no faith in the commissioners, who would rely on the statements to be given 
by bank officers, and prove no check at all to mismanagement. The commis- 
sioners would have an unbounded and very dangerous influence, and form a 
connecting link between all the institutions, for political or any other combina- 
tions they might think necessary ; and the whole machinery prove an unsafe 
monopoly, nothing short of despotism. , , i -, ■ , 

I am very well satisfied, that an honest, efficient system could be devised 
without difficulty, by which this country would have a sound currency, portable, 

"for public improvements, but in reality for party purposes, and the granting of charters for 
" banks with which to strengthen the hands of party leaders. I would sanction nothing but 
"silver'and gold as a circulating medium." This fellow puts me in mind ot the sharper 
Jenkinson in the Vicar of Wakefield. He had silver on his tongue, but did not forget to 
abstract ^150 000 of the bank funds, with the aid of his more tolerant partner in leatlier, Macy. 
The bank, through a committee, gave up good securities to debtors and took the Tonawanda 
Bank in lieu of them capital $150,000, but not worth one cent. In Nov. 1839, the bank, by 
Lewis Eaton (Van Buren's ex-safety fund com'r) its president, General Barker, attorney and 
director L F Allen, no whig of '70, and the other directors, appointed three ot themselves a 
committee " to take collateral securities, or extinguish doubtful debts." Stephen White, L. b . 
AUen and Jed H Lathrop were chosen, and went to work and made a settlement ot ttie attains 
of the' bank concerning which Marcy swears " that the same was made with intent to detraud. 
I need not tell vou that as their brother in the aftair. Barker, was elected Attorney Greneral by 
those who had'got rich by such knavery, and their abettors and supporters, there were uu con- 
victions either at statute or common law. George P. Barker appears to have boriowed largely 
S13 000 with Vandervoort, $10,000 on his stock, known to him to be utterly worthless, $3 000 
on Ohio citv &c Let honest republicans keep in mind, that atler Barker had brought forth 
and buried this infamous bank, Plagg, Marcy, O'Sullivan Dix, Corning, Faulkner, Davezac, 
M Hoffman Van Buren, and the party leaders selected him tor Attorney General of the 
State while the Syracuse Convention that named Van Buren for president on a second term, 
nut Attorney Barker and Col. Young on their ticket as state electors. „ . , . 

The Bank of Builalo another safety fund concern, of which Hiram Pratt was President and 
John R Lee cashier chose Orlandt) Allen as its President on the death of Pratt, whom a fear 
of premature discoveries of villainy hastened to his grave. It failed in 1840, and had issued 
many thousands of dollars of its paper, as money, beyond the limit allowed by aw, I's oflicers . 
Allen and Lee, solemnly swearing to the contrary before the commissioneis. A Buffalo grand 
iurv on what was believed to be unquestionable testimony, indicted Lee and Allen for the 
oer urv— they were arrested and held to bail, Allen, if memory serves me, being out ot the way 
and brouc'ht' back It is reported that the banks lent their notes {o the brokers at regulai 
interest with an understanding, &c., that the brokers shaved (exacted usury) as close as they 
could that the profits were divided between the brokers and the president and directors ot thf 
banks and that when discounts were applied fur, they would say " we can't do it— Lee, the 
broker can— away to Lee." Two per cent, a month, &c., followed, ot course. This may or 
may not be so— but as Lee is a fair spoken, plausible person, and as Allen quotes Barker s 
case and says they all do it, I wrote a friend in Buffalo to send me all the papers containing 
the trial or any part of the proceedings, as Barker was the prosecutor, and the case of unusual 
inLrest to the whole countr^. Here is the result. " Buffalo, Nov. 30, 1843. W. L. Macken- 
" zie Sir • General Barker has just concluded his speech in the trial ot John R. Lee, the 
"cashier for perjury in swearing to false returns. The evidence contains some strange 
" developments in banking. The judge proceeds with his charge— the verdict you will get 
" to morrow The trial excites much interest, and the newspapers containing the best report 1 
" will send to you." Soon after, the N. Y. papers said he was acquitted, and my friend wrote 
aeain— " Every Buffalo paper is silent on the details of Lee's trial— he was acquitted, but there 
"was perjury or its equivalent somewhere, and enough of it too. Why the public journals, 
" which often copy very unimportant issues in the courts, should have all omitted this very 
" imnortant one you can guess as near the truth as, yours truly." The end of the Buffalo banks, 
13 in all was hopeless insolvency, fraud in not a few, and the honest part of the community 
in Ohio New York Canada, Indiana, &c., were cheated, as before by Van Buren's first bank, 
and by similar characters, too. Had the evidence in Lee's case justified the verdict, or had 
the attorney general been any other than a character steeped in bank corruption ; had he been 
ardent to seaxcli for produce, and duly examine the witnesses that might have been forthcoming 
either would Lee's exculpatory testimony been heralded .o his credit, or the verdict proved 
lome atonement to a piUaged people. All may have been right— but I have witnessed trials 
in this state which were so managed as to make me more Uan suspicious. 



diS WEBSTER, JACKSON, LIVINGSTON; THE N. Y. CITY BANKS. 

suitable for cotniiierce, and yet not be exclusively iiu-tallic ; but it does not 
appear probable tliat Van liuien had any wish lor such a currency at this tiiuc. 
General Jackson saitl he i^new "' a very good plan ot" a LanU," bul w Iku 1 wrote 
some of his cabinet advistj.s, they liad never seen it. Webster's language, iu 
January, 1834, was very judicious. Wliilc he denounced the pets, he said to 
government, tell us of a better plan than the U. S. Bank, and we will adopt it. 
" For the convenience of the government and of the country," said he, " there 
must bt; some bank, and he should wish to hear the views of the adminislralion. 
He was not so wedded to ruis bank, as not to be willing to liear any other plan 
which human ingenuity might devise, if any other feasible scheme coukl be 
devised." 

The following extract from Jackson's Farewell Address of Ivlarcii, 1S37, 
appears to uie to exhibit other fi'elings and principles than those of lb29 and 
1834. VVliy did he foster the state banks for eight years, and tlu'ii condemn 
them .'' 

" The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer, sU knovrlhat their .success depends 
upon their own indu.stry and economy, and that they must not expect to hccome suddenly rich 
l)y the I'rnits (if their toil. Yet these clas.ses of society form tlie ^real body of tlie j eujjle of the 
IJ. S.. they are the bone and sinew uf the country ; men wlio love liberty and desiie nothing 
but equal riijhts and equal laws, and A\ho moreover hold the si eat ma.^s of our national 
wealth, althouq:h it is distributed in moderate amounts among the millions of lieemen who 
jK).s'<ess it. But, with overvrhelinir.g numbers and wealth un their .'■ide, they aie in constant 
danger of losing their fair influence in the government, and with difiicnity maintain their just 
rights against tlie incc^sar.t ettlats daily made to encroach upon tlun. The niisi'liitf .sj)rings 
from the power which the moneyed interests derive Irom a pajicr currency, Achich lliey lu'e 
able to control ; Ji'oni the multitude of corixirations with exclusive [rivilcges, v.hich tiicy iia\'e 
succcfiled in obtaining in the diiiL-ient states, and which ;il- tmj.ioyeci illogeilit-r J'or their 
bi'iielil ; and unless you i)ecome more wctchful in }C)tU' st;ncs, ;nid clur!: ihis .-p.ini of uuUiO- 
jioly ;ind thirst for exclusive privileges, you will iii theend lincl tli;,t ihe mo^t iin) ciiant )(A\eis 
of govenniicnt have been given or barteied aAvay, r.nd that tlie conti dI o\ci your (i'--;,r« s.l iult:rests 
lias passed into the liands of these coi-jiorations." 



CHAPTER XXI 



JllbniMi luiiil and Shtte l^jiiim. — Evf/lish iiiodi: of Bunk Iinjuincs. — Silas 
Wr'ujhl. — Nov York Banks protest (ujuinst Van Jyitrcn's iMutituI Itisiiratue 
Coiiipani/. — N. S. Benlu7'i, a steady Bank Man. — Currcspcndawc on Banks — 
Opinions of Old Safcti/ Flinders. — Charles Stebbius. — The Dry Dock Bank — 
(I'eorije R. Davis. — Peter Robinson. — The Electioneering Coniinission. — The 
Broken Banks., their Villainy and Rottenness. — The Watervliet Bank. — T. 
ir. Olcotl^ Bond. — Bunk "f Lyons. — Dishonest Receivers. — Eijbert Olcolt. 

Van Bi:iu-:n's Safety Fund Act of 1829, is a regular union of bank and state ; 
the state was to protect the banks and to control them.* He found that to cairy 

• 'J'lir- B iriUs i:i Nfw Voiii— the .Mei(li;iiii.-', Cilv, MccliMiiici-', I': (rni\. Union. Ti;ii1imi)iii'(-, ami H:ink ol" 
Aincrica— wi-lir.l i.Mi.'waN. Iiiil Ui.y ..Ijcilnl ic) liic'liill, ill S.iiutc, Mrtiili :;(). Iliiit ii « ;ck wrniij; lo iii..kf Iht 
wIm.Ic ..I'Uii- liiiiiks ivs|i(.ii>ihl.- Ic.r citli oiioiV nmiliic; and liiuiiiguiiMi: — ll.lH in •!() \ciii> • nlv tivf i h.irti i- d 
( i y l.;itikK liiid liiil-d— tliiii u illn.ut a p;;iii ii|i i:;i|ul;.l a:;(l lair'il'iil and ( a|.aljl.- din (■:.»!-, \'an HwrnV plan xvcnld 
lie n . r.-iiirdv ai all. anil wiUi llicw. It waMint M'(iMir<-d— lliat ihc Uiri-i' t(miiiii!i:ii)n is wmild b<- a dt-ln-i, ii ..C 
II .■ iMihlic, and a f.ilsf. ill (.Tunidi'd m ciirilv , UciauH.: mi llir'C mm cii'-ld liiak- Ui<- i oin|ili-:i' iasp, cli<ln^, in- 
quiric- and r\aniiiiaii(r.i.< ?iccrssiii\ lo li.llil ilii- i ileiiliim of liiu iiri'|iosi'd law, and mi)i. ifiii.al Iniiniiics would 
I'ftL'ivi- 111"- Mdv<,-ia, well inana;;. d lianK-. rni-ouiafjc lianil, and dinply injiii:' ill'' ci'nnlr>- in tl:e Imhi; run— lliat 
III.- |io\vfr tivca Ki li.r Si-c r.';ii \ id' lln 'l'ivanii\ h> irH|<'rl ill.' i-iii.dm-l id' ll'c T . S. Hank liad pti'Vnl delii>i\e, 
thf va..t anmuiii of ilid.iliaiiMi iiavin^ n.aily iiiim'il ii lii-f.nc In' kmw Iliat anviliiij; wa«i wmiit!— thai no |>iovi 
i<ii>ii had 1)1111 iiiadi' thai a rial nnd loinpi'trm (ajiilal sliould Ic iriiiiiicd when I'l u clianci^ \m iv ^'raiiird, no- 
llial Uirs'.iicU *li(iuM fu intii lln- hand- ■ f rial lama fnlt' Morkho.d.is, and imt inni III.- k.i'p ntr of spcculalom. 
V. Hun II iV Co. would h,iv lo^t. and tti.' p. ,,pln s:i\«d iiiillii)ii.- hy Much a'l li nir.-a pmvi- o : s liis. 

On thf 4ih of .\piil, Mr. T. L. Smith a^kl•d luavc lo wlllidiaw the nicinoniils iVoiii thr N V. liiy banks ; and 
Mr. C. L. Liviiig5iun,w hone (iee bank kltors appear ill tins voliinu', truly romaikid. that ihcir imuiniiers Iiiw 



WRIGHT, SMITH, EATOX, BENTON, ALLEN, STEBBINS. 93 

>^ flv> tmnner of the times required such a proposition to be artfully 
his measure., the tunuiOtti.e I H ^ j^^ villainy, wholesale as it 

""'r ''T had b n'l.llv a onpliXi and the people dul/plundered in that 
surely was, had bLtn tuny acco ', ^tended to be horror-struck at the 

''^'"-;t:^tr^ s';: ui s^d' aSl-S the. repeal. Young said that 
roguery o. bank ana '^."^ " ', ^-a ^f ,[,„ injury which the monopoly 

^^TChS';"o::;,S^l • tt^t^;!^, hk^ V^^ Buren^olu that he hacl upheld, 
systen hadaccom . , .^ .^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^, Tompkins and Chnton s solemn 

nursed, '^"^^^^ " ;;^^ j,,.,;i p undered one class by his sham satety tund ; he 
''"'■"'"tvnrened to plunder another by his subtreasury. That scheme would 
'''? " n^'v^carce ind oblic^e the man who had mort-^aged h.s estate m tunes 
make monej scarce, ana ou . [ ^ ^,^^ ^-^^^^ ,„ tirnes of 

^' ^'^^ : ffi^' t^r iE a^^ of ^;s ILL The banl^upt law of 1842 
scarcity,) or toit.it lu, > ^ 1S32, the British Parhament had 

"" ;'" ' TcS "To currency befo^l'e^., and s'pecial comn.ittees called be- 
'1^-^ '""-^^td "fr ullv eianLd bankers, merchants, manufacturers, n.en o 
''^^^^"^:^ ^ ^W^^^^ the whole' was taken down in shorthand and 
skdl f^'-^^^'lj^^^ ,t a future session. One of these reports and the 
prmted. Action no ^^ question is— What course will 

evidence form, a la gc l^e leaders otthe'party / Tedious, though invaluable 
i;::^ n:^:^rr:\:lde m'l:::!^^^ ..imons to the people, hut they 



would be too monarchical . 

Such is the 
which, Silas W 



'oI>M-atlon of Van Buren's deceptive Safety Fund, concerr.UKr 

tr^;^^A^ -:r^e-f- ^n ^o:^:i^ngV^^??H^ 

Uef ittustN THr.'csT MANNER, consulted the greatest safety ot the banks. - 

nv.v.ul lr..ni "ffiro K. iirike w;iy for ^^.l"^";. ^n i.-rnks were cliart.T>il-iii 1830, only 8-18 in 18!1-^| 

1„ 1,-i,., on V:.„ Bu, or.-, principle o .^.'^^^'Y <" ,-^ .'^' ;' '^7u,c ,ir.t <.l Jan.mry, 1837, th.ir namm.r 

riniiil was $32,5:11, ti.O-llieir ca.-ti .■i.),o52,3> /, <"'!,. """^ „",,,„. " r , vi ,v tlirv k o)t np.vm.^nt. The S.Tia'c 

J,mr,.,a of IS-XJ. .hows ilio workm.; .^ '''^ '''' ^^^^^ '^^^ rv of Staa-. w;,s .hen a S ni.tor. He voted w>th toe 
Ui-<r.-..-t Attoni.'y tor Northern N. \., ^"'^^, ;'^ ^ ,^^^,';'';, i^^ liciUon, S. AUoo, Bo.anlus, Thrnop, Sicl.bu,., 

l«;„lers. l.ul "•«»\'g'»'rVHt r-T^-inP I an 1 D .vpr"- Bnak, hut a belter mKlerstanMins with the reg.ocy was 
and Ham, ton.;.lmvke.l ^1"^ .i^" ,^,'^'^,^\,:^,'^ ' n •adv th.same parlies unit.:.l against several other banks^ Me- 
brouiiht about an. ne« year tt^- . pa-- ■ g^ r' .>p'^ ;j Law.'lhat no dirrctoT. officer or «!;cat ot any ch.trter- 
,,he,> Allen inove.l ar. «-^'^^»''"^ l-^'';^ ^'^^^^^^^^^^^ o( any hank note, h .n.l, or obli^ialion .-sue.l 

1.1 b ,nk sh«ll P>irc h.ai^e or b;^. " ' ;;:\'^ ^"„ ''°,i'^ '^o.e;^^^^^^ &c., under a penalty. N. S. Benton jiave this hon- 
l,v anv hank for a less sum tl'an tl e ace "' ^| '^"°.«'j^^ „; Hay.ieM, Ha?er, Stehbin«, Wheeh'r, Wat-M,nan and 
lv:,.i;:Z^^';teaittvlr;' ■N^'raerth^^n.^e^l^.-aLanl^onnnis^ioner.ana president of the Cty Bank 

'" ':;:?icre,ary of State, N. S Benton, is a ^y -■tal^--::;^:^J|:;i,'^n;^:;;u;:i^^v^^^ ''^'^^''^ 
.hrS.nate.how tha, •'V\.';;V? r,'l^^ ho'c let"^ n,n n ^ K-i of Orre-l-oodence. The latter 

plicate of Dr. Suthe.lt - ol ' l'";'; -^ i? ';'• " ■ ^^ ' Th v 'a ly 1'<'1< I'e n.asses in couten.pr, an.l never hesUa.e 
.•,v.,we,l frankly wliat all l'-''^''^^, '':":; 1' ,%,,jV Vet tho.e n,en are successful while h.tle rei;a,d i. pa,, 
a. ,o n.ea.«, prov,dc.l hoy ... f ; . ' ^^'^^ i,^^^ have thou;:.., w,.u^.l 

by the p-ople t.. l.on.;st, capable. '''""''■ V/.^.^ r' 'or nd ve he has starcelv b.-n outof oliice ever .-nice 1 the prople 
I.L.e'clM.led hi.., thereat, ..r '-:>" M ' ^'^^'^ ; ,^i ,' ^ requests ho,h for l.in>s.,lf an,l fan.ily : I^h. 

ofPhirnhipl.iaand tlu,J..^S iime^^^^ ^^^ ,j,,,'l5.„l^ ,^1,, ^, „(■ „i,i times, the people love 

lo^;:'' chc^leHn,! hekp honors „u their ^''^yiX^'he ''enairlSei. Allen proposed to improve it by a pr..- 

While Van B.r^.>'^ • <=':e,;al n,e...ure was|,ef e^^^^ JJ.^^ ch .rter culd b. renrw ,1 

vision, that .■a.Jj bank cei'L ly "' °; ' ;^.' .''j'^,, ^"^l 'one ,f th- capitd b. divi.le.l .except by virtue ot law, a.ul tha 

,l,a, n.. dividen.ll.,' "•=''''''"' '\';i',''"? A Hn- n " a' -r^ in sp.'cnlatir,:; in the sto.-ks of o'.her c.nnpanles, :.o.l 

^;:rk^:^''^c!:^^'^^^"^''^ ^™ ,!.' th:^:^;^^K Bank, Ba„k of Monroe, Far.n.r. and Mocn .• 
ics. Lockporl. Ithaca, Yat.s '^'^ '^^•,^;::;;;;:" f:::'i^;;,„„e„t of Van Curen, in these tin.c.. He took Lis ^eat 
Cliarles Sn-bbiMtJ, x.o. wa< a ^t-a.K-. v. .-nn- pi .":,"';.':',''',. ,,„. p„r.v chara^r..* in l^^.i3. an.l a.;-, n • a..- 
in the senate for the ."ith .h-n.-t .. ■;"";'■- " ;'; ;',„j\ „',; ,|,icr_pr..v,-;i him., 'if hi to bs a .^,-l,ei^^.• n lor 

i;^« EeS/^.d UtSk^^sllt a: ir^Ji^^ol".^^^, when Throo^ took Van Bur. n. pl.e-and when .... 



94 



A VIEW OF WRIGHT, BUTLER, AND VAN BUREN's SANDY HILL SAFES. 



Twelve years after, at Albany, as Governor, (Jan. '46,) Mr. Wright changed 
his tone, and sa.d that " That legislation which equalizes the benefits and bur- 
dens of government, and attempts to secure no special advantages to any will 
diffuse prosperity throughout a community .... attempts to confer favors bv 
law upon classes or localities, produce a competition de.«tructive to profitable 
industry ; a strife, not to earn but to gain the earnings of others The 

tendency of this false system is to separate capital from productive labor,' and 
carried out to its full extent, will produce the singular result, that he who labors 
least may accumulate the most, and he who works the hardest may know the 
most want. These latter views are borrowed from Burke— are correct— and 



.hebmtom.keit palatable to the milli,m, but never meant / be used ^r their b^^^^^^^ '" 

and declared m debate that he was'^t'he "ncompromiLferle ny of the Unfted^^ 

his hostility till it ceased to exist. Otcoit was dpliehted ami in VdHv>> nnvifwa. . i l' ^ nevercease 

Olcotfs intlaence, (or the N. Y. banks had the, , „^vo,e: ?n 8.31 we fi.^d the banks senHil'r.'"''''"""'''''""^*' 
to the loRislmnre, as its Speaker, 91 to 30, while Peter Rob "son of Breome, the 5^ 

against the whole scheme as injurious to his coui.trv, was ostracised ' ""P^^^^' "' '«23, who had voted 

Major Reese the Commissioner appointed by the western banks, was not, like Stebbing and navi= a f«ii«.., 

bank, or that at a low rate of interest, on which large profit.? were made bvtlie borrowers w^H^ 
de standing that cenaia men should have certain s/iinis lent them. The macSrwas made to ,^^^^^^ 
VV. "^..""v" 'l'""; '"'■!.' "•^••' '"'■"erf "ver to get more gain to the hw by dere " . c t^eir Mother me 

si-v^r^/r^^-khtii/'^ii^vr^r'--'--^^^^ 
re^?:^f::nd*^nS."irX^a;;S.'u^;!:m^:'vJ!:^^ 

the Bank of Buffalo, the ConimcrcialBaMk of Buffalo the WavL Co h,^^^^^ LAttorney General BarkerV.J 
cial Bank of Oswego, and the Clinton Co. Bank, each of ^'emfn^olv^ent sa^^^ inrtcertTn'ok '''.Vfrr "■• 
quiieiieilher bond nor. scciuily, either from their cashiers tellers rierkx orV..i,nr „*V . ' , ."^' '" '*' 

coiulurt, and protect the stockholders and the pi blic g.^n t erbez.z^em^mV 7anX^^^^ '"''' ^""^^"^ 

ers winked at all this, and thcjr whig successors were^not onrwhH more clelrsi.^ ted ThlT ,orS' Rr.^ 
tc.k an excellent security in the ,mideiit and pious T. W. Olcott, but the understam in" i,elwe!.. .h . ^h m"" 
and his receiver seems to be that the creditors of the bank do not need t ar mnnev r rir,H r" '^'•anc^-Ilor 

liie Receivers on th. Senate's journal, but enough "rmat^er'n which Sv^lnve.m^;^^^^^ . ' "i" '"^''^ "^ 
There Were $1,2-21,843 due to the Bank of Buffalo, when it fa led, Nov? J84P Wa wor.h anno n,er<^ 'v T'""' 

Murdnck, vW..,Huc.-.eeded 10. Oloolt, as cas r, wrote Cornpt oiler Fl.iggAprllaT I«4>> that tl e K^r "7' ^•, 

seiT,; .V„'tM'rr„''M' *;'"•««"-.•"■."- P'-'P'/of the Wat^rvllet, on wiiich':[ln:d^S^e/K^pa^i,ue eT The 

comn.isHioners, receivers, and chancery injunction, arc wor'.h to the plfblic a» a protccUon from fraud * ^ ^'"'""' 



FLAGG, HOYT, MARCY, AND THE FREE BANKS. 95 

at variance with the governor's conduct as a politician, tor the last twenty-two 

^^To t*hat valtmble class of citizens who have the time and opportunity to read, 
reason, and reHect, the letters of Flagg, Livingston and t uttuig, and the remarks 
of Marcv in pa-es 174 to 1S2 of this volume, must prove very in cresting 
When the piivUeied system had been pushed to its umost limit by the jaded 
hacks of party, alul no more money could be made on that tack, they wheel 
about for pelf and popularity, abuse their own handywork, and go for banks, 
with a circulation founded on Arkansas, llhno.s, M.ssiss.ppi, Michigan, Penn- 
svlvania, and other state debts, and with privileges, the character ot which the 
North American Trust Co., and kindred coalitions ot knavery too soon deye- 
innpd Marcv page 174, boldly denounces the system that had placed \'an 
Sen at Utei'ea'd of the 'nation: Flagg would blow " the lobby "sky high 
and look forward from Plattsburgh banks and regency banking with scenes of 
lo-rolling and corruption," to tmies to con>e, ur which a " decent regard to 
niSral and official purity" would be preserved by the party : Marcy (p. 17o) 
would borrow Hoyt\s experience to enable hmi o throw down V an buien s 
step-ladder, now no longer needed : Flagg would demolish the usury laws and 
allow the avaricious to exact cent per cent, if the necessities ot ihe.r debtors 
would compel such conditions (p. 176): Livingston would put a stop to all 
legislation in favor of " chartered nuisances :" \ oung was ready to draw his 
« drippings of unclean legislation " from the banks, and lend cash on mortgage 
at usurious rates, denounced from Genesis to Revelations, ,1 the u.ury law 
could be crot rid of (p. 177, &c.) : and lloyt and Butler would squeeze from 
the merchants their last dollar, through the Custom Hoiuse and Belts s Courts 
to speculate with it, through the free bank ot Beers, btilwell & Co. m V^ all 
street (p. 179). 



CHAPTER X X il I. 

" Vice is undone if she Ibrj^ets her birth, 
And stoops iVoin Angels to the dregs of earth ; 
But 'tis the tall degrades her to a whore ; 
Let greatness own her, and sho's mean no inor-'. 
Hcr'birth, her beauty, courts and crowds contest; 
Chaste Matrons praise her, and grave Bishops bless. 
Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim 
That Jj' Not to bk Corrupted ! .^ is the shpjne. 
In soldier, churchman, patriot, man of power, 
'Tis avarice all, ambition is no more." 

Jackson Eleclioneerinq.-Jaclcsonin the Saddk.-Kcep Congress pure -Steven, 
son's Gennine Golden Bmt.-Wirhliffe's Expcrirnre.—Duane s rhoughts^— 
Kinq Georqe\ Slave Market. -Who's the Story Teller.- Slcvenson jond of 
Wheelinq. -Blair and Ritchie, or a Pap behind the Screen.— t^u/s lazzlc 
and Wright's and Benton's Votes.— Stevensnn gets to London.— Polk and ^td.- 
dell —Rdrhie's Hupocris,j.-He .swalloics the Gilded Bait.— A Beep at II al~ 
ker -Ritchie 40 years ago.-The Washington ,Slave Mart.— Congress Sh^^^^^^ 
hfes.— Wilkins, Buchanan, Barbour, Old Gurroic, Camhreleng, Litis, McLane, 
Muhlenburg, iVc. 

After the election of John Quincy Adams by the House of Representativc-s, 
and when Gener&l J&ckson had been again announced as a candidate tor the 



96 



JACK.ON KLECTIOXEERIAG. CONGRESSMEN MUST 



NOT BE BRIBED. 



ot res,v„aci„n. The foliowing-i/an Sract: " F'^'plos ia ],is iHlcr 




u- clay/'* ' " '"""--''' ''' »*^ coiu'inccd that corruption will 

Mr. Adams had appointed Henrv ^l^v -^ Q. * l- r. 
The above was .n.ean/ a.s a rebuke o w'ms ^^f ^'^'•' ^V^'''"^^''^' "'' ^^"^^'• 
v.ew of injuring the popularity of Adan S CI .v"' ^^'^ r''^''' ^'"^ ^»'« 
next election. Like Folk'.s pli.Le fo st"nd b u"\\ T '"''^ ''^t^^^'^^'^ ^« ^'^'^ 
--1th degree a.ul n.turalizaticJn, if v L "4c Iv kif 11^ "IT'T ^"^"V""^ «" ^^c 
cerity and good faith. peilcctl;y fair if it had been done in .sin- 

J^'rD.t:Z li;:ldo;1r;S;:^t'^^^"^ 1 Flncipleasto atte.pt to 
of the Ru.s.ian e.nbassv. Vhi our ed" h "°"' ^^' '^'^'^S" l^im the rich bait 
-7— . •' ''^ ''""'"^^"**^^P"r«u^^v,th Andrew Stevenson n 







mSSgmmmmm 

-Til- I'ti..,., ..,■ I ....! t\ . ■ "|'3i"t'.K'idM;> wiih llm new 




'lli'il ;iM ' iinnrop,-!- iiicjisiin 
<rf.ln.K„| f„ri|„. Kifiuss.,, 
'•Ilnlllil ri'lli:il:i vv lih lijiii uIk'Ii 
)Miii.^i-ir, lull nnh;iiia<>e('l llie K 
MAJonlTV IN TJIK IKM SK O" . (., 

P-'iirs ih.-it II... Vi.prov wnul.!,,.., , 
l"Kly.^t.-.t,.,ltl,:it ■ l„. l,;i,l ,..i-,.ivi-.l ti 



-'I ^o int,.„, on (lis ol,„.c, ,l„l f^Zv u ut Un^l 'T "",""""^' ''*" ^•■"'• 

MMONS' lie l,,.„l ll„H inv,.|v,,l Ul^rny^ ;^rr-;^T',''''''V:''' '"'""^ * 

KiNo-s imtK. -.loN^ .., ..|.| .s " ' ;^^ "^"■'■'■■- "'"1 I'o "rc-r-l 

1(1 K.r Midi .services men wcrf; to lie re 



. o ij.iir.i 1 ill>s 1(1 <l|l|l(ist; III 

ncl.« wx-m not to liaii.sniit iii,,. i.jn.s ; 



practi^i;;;;^';aw;S'£'';i;acS' ;;";;;!:' ;":"-':•' -^ ^ »f ^•^' or yir,i„ia, whore he was 1„„., 

"•'■"• ' "^i"!^ '- took hS i; in To, "c 'si?'':i!;^: l" f"'^' ^"'l^^^' '^^^^'""^y- "'• Van B u v n 
^t;.Io. In IH-J J, he was volionm t , ? ^ ^^ '!' ^"'■'■- ' " ^^rceinhL-r, I8-21 , Ibr ii is qJJ, 

-).- voted ,or iiin, iifti < S I'^-iris-n " 'i;/" ""'' I""' ^■'a-'^'rcl u-as his h^^^^a 

Oct 1.1, ,H2H, I.y Joh.., S]^a.u^ .m/^- ;'o,,i^^r.V , VJ f""' !'r"'" •^'^■'■'"■"'"■■^' 'n:olli<..n.-er: 

- the he,i„n,„, of the .e..oa of .s^^^^::^!^;;: i^:^^ aS;yr^r "o;'^^^; 



TAMPERING WITH CONGRESS — HOW THEY DO IT. A. STEVENSON. 97 

On the 22d of Alay, 1S34, President Jackson nominated Andrew Stevenson, 
then presiding in the H. of iv., to be Envoy Extraordinary to the court of Lon- 
don, doubtless as the reward of his subservience to the Executive. Mr. Clay 
moved an inquiry as to when Stevenson was first promised this $9,000 a year 
and $9,000 outfit, by a president who, when he wanted the peopUi's votes, had 
a holy horror at influencin;^ the free deliberations of the people's representatives 
by holdino- out expectations of wealth and power to leading congressmen who 
would be pliant and servile. The documents were produced by the President, 

Stevenson, who with TavU)r and CampbsU were candidates for the chair, said, '• Elect me 
Speaker, and hv God I'll susiain the administration" — (Adams and Clay.) He mms not 
elected, and he iiiined to Jackson and against the men then in power. Stevenson denied that 
he hail so said; hut Governor Branch, when the unit cabinet hroke np, stated that Jackson 
had expressed great contempt Cor Stevenson. It' so, he took a sober second thought, and Ste- 
venson proved such a strict and steady partisan that the party kept him seven years in the 
Speaker's ciiair. He resigned on June '2d, 1831, his oilice and seat, under the pressure of a 
".severe and continued indisposition," which Jackson appears to have cured by the offer of a 
mission to London. 

Jackson set a less value on Stevenson tlian Van Buren did. Stevenson's cunning, in- 
triguing turn, suited Van Buren. Governor Branch says: '• When, sir, I separated from 
General Jackson, but a short time' previous to his determination to appoint Mr. Sievenson 
minister to the Court of St. James, he did not regard him as 'worth the powder and ball it 
would take to kill him.' This very expression 1 have heard used or assented to by him, and 
candor compels me to admit that Iheartily concurreil witli General Jackson in his estimate of 
Mr. Stevenson's v/orili." 

When the dispute arose in Congress about which set of New Jersey members were, or 
would be atlniitted to be, tub sillinu: inembers, and it became apparent that the decision would 
give one party or the other the selection of a Speaker, Van Buren's editor, Blair, through i/w 
iiinhc, gave the uninitiated a hint of the uses to which Spealcers are put, in the words and 
sentences which follow : 

^[^" ()r::anl:nlinu flf the House of Rcprcscnl»lu-cs. — We perceive that the public mind is 
f;^ strongly awakened in regartl to the preparations of the Federal party to get command of 
^;^ the House of Representatives by their fraud in the election <if inenrbers and (alsihcalion of 
|r_^ returns afterwards. If they can foist on the Representmive body spurious members 
O" enough to make a majority in the opening, there is no doulu they will hold it to the end. 
g:^ Trie "connnand of the Speakership will give them the committees--among them the 
g^' Committee of Elections. Their report will conform to the interest of the appointing party, 
^rj- and the same dishonest majority which woukl conspire to get a control of the House by 
f^ couiuerl'eiling members, would vote to maintain it." 

Polk's editor, Ritchie, then of the Richmond Enquirer, was equally oli' his guard. In terror 
he exclaimed — ''• Have the whig party become desperate '? Are they determined at all events 
10 seize the reins— TO CARRY A SPEAKER for the next congress— AND HE TO SHAPE 
OUT THE WHOLE STANDING COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE FOR THE 
BENEFIT OF THE WHIGS ["—Enquirer, Nov. G, 1838. 

" The command of the Speakership will give ihein the committees," and the report of the 
committees "will conform lo the interest of tJie appointing p:irty." Van Buren writes from 
Kinderhook that Blair is the very best of authority — and hence it is evident that it M'as the 
usage of Speaker Stevenson's coi^mittees, and, of course, Speaker Polk's, to malcc their re- 
forms to suit " the interest of the appointing party !" Here is the reason why the administra- 
tion of justice is too often a reproach and a by- word, and the profligate expenditures and 
appropriations of the pariy always sustained, and inquiry stilled in the grand inquest of the 
nation. The majority, who elect the President, send congressmen, who elect a Speaker who will 
appoint commiuees to suit the Jaclcson, Polk or Van Boren of the day — and these committees 
will be deaf to the dishonesty of the worst men their leader may appoint. A Butler, Ho^t, 
Wetmore, Stevenson, Lawrence. Edmonds, Woodbury, McNulty, or J. Van Buren, is im- 
pregnal)le under such a system, by which the popular part of our fi'ee con.stitution becomes a 
screen ibr iniquity and crime. "Sir," said J. Q,. Adams, to the Speaker, during the Texas 
debate, June U), 1838, " the Standing Committees are the eyes, the ears, and in a very great 
degree, the judgment of this House. They are instituted for that very end. They are ap- 
pointed to meet the subjects sent to us, to con.sider them, and mature them iljr our action." 
General Dromgoole admitted the correctness of the Globe's statement, when he owned that his 
committee had reported on many resolutions of legislatures and petitions from citizens, without 
opening or looking at or into one of them ! 



98 LIVINGSTON, WRIGHT, BENTON, CLAY, WEBSTfiR, AND WALKER. 

One of them was a letter from E. Livingston, sec. of state, to Speaker Steven- 
son, dated 15th of March, 1S33, (fiftken months before his no.minat[on ! ! !) 
in these words — " >SiV ; / am directed by the I^resident to inform you, CONFI- 
DE N 2'IJI LLY, that as soon as advices shall be received that the British govern- 
ment consent to open negotialions loilh this, which are daily expected, it is his in- 
tention to offer you the place of Minister to the Court of St. James, and he requests 
that, should this aypoinimenl be agreeable to you, you uould hold yourself in 
readiness to embark in the course of the summer.'''' Another letter was from T. 
Ritchie to W. B. Lewis, objecting to fiUing up of Van Buren's London berth 
with a congressman, without letting the senate know about it. The President 
declared that he never knew that Stevenson had answered the letter of Living- 
ston. On June 24lh, the senate, 23 to 22, negatived .Stevenson's appointment, 
made under such suspicious circumstances. But among the Senators who ap- 
proved of Jackson's plan of ofiering an American Speaker a high otiice, " con- 
fidentially," lo months before he left the chair to accept it, and thus keeping 
the o-olden bait always before his eyes, although he and his fellow members 
mio-hi be called to take a bold stand against executive encroachments, were 
(^ Silas Wright, (^ T. H. Benton, {ct^ King of Ala. (now minister to 
France,) (cj^ Wilkins, (^ Polk's teacher, Grundy, ils^ Lsaac Hill, (^ Tall- 
madge, {ji^ Van Huren's Sec, Forsyth, (51^ and John T^ler ! Among the nays 
were Clay, Calhoun, Ewing, Clayton, Weljster, and Poindexier. But the 
Senate was defeated in the long run. In May, 1S35, Andrew Steven.son might 
have been seen presiding in that mockery of a people's convention for the nation 
which nominated Martin Van Buren for the next presidency — and in due time 
Jackson's pledge to his unworthy confederate was redeemed, and Stevenson 
sent ambassador to London. It was Stevenson that put Polk * at the head of 

* Since 1825, President Polk'* mentor and advocate, Ritchie, has so veered about from Jackson's 
principles to Jackson's practice as to consent that congressmen and editors may be rewai'dcd by 
the executive, as amlxissadors, judijes, and cabinet ministers [see Corresponfience, p. 214 to 
2lG] — lie has even admitted that on a rare occasion, one of them, at least, may j.ccept ?i;40,000 
a year (hin)self, ibr instance}, as printer to senate, house of representatives, and president. In 
accordance with this new dctinition of a boundary or lence against corruption, Piesident Polk 
gave James Buchanan the vast power and patronage of the secretary oi' state's otiice ; and per- 
haps that was settled, like the presidential candidate question, «fc2i« the ^'weol'the last Baltimore 
Convention. That Bitr-hanan knew the use of that power may be inferred from his speech in 
senate, 1838, where he said thr.t " When a man is once appointed to oihce, all the selfish pas- 
sions of his nature arc cnlist(}d for the purpose of retaining it. I'he othcc-holders are the 
enlisted soldiers of that administration by which they are sustained. Their comibrtable cxisi- 
ence olk-n depends upou the re-election of their patron." The Secretaryship of l)ie I'reasuiy, 
with its ten to twelve iulliions olt patronage, lie gave to Robert J. Walker. Thus did he enlist 
two v^ery conspicuous members of congress, and by so doing gave " strong grounds of apprehen- 
sion and jealousy on tlie part of the people," "thai corruption will be the order of the di.y' with 
him, however regular he may have been at college prayers in North Carolina, or his man 
Butler al " stated preachings'' at Sandy Hill. 

Secretary Walker is a native of Northumberland, Pn., in which state his father, .Tonathan 
Walker, was a county judge, and 1 believe a teacher of youth. The Secretary is a lawyer ; 
began his political career in his native state ; and, on his emigration to Mississippi, entered inln 
many speculations, partly in lands and contracts. H(; is said to have owned iii;40,000 worth of 
lands in Texas, and he certainly gave its annexation to the U. S., as a new held lor the cultiva- 
tion of sl.ivery, all the support that Polk or .Johnson could have desired. In the Senate, he wa-- 
friendly to the principle of the last bankrupt law — perha]is, for a like rca:-on with St i! well, tlw 
IT. S. Marshal here — ibr Horace Greeley, in the Tribune ot Dec. 8lh, says lie " hr.s been deep 
enough in credit, spcculaiion, and paper money — is now a bankrupt — and in 1834 wrote in 
favor of a national bank, and the restoratioa of the deposits" thereto. TJio Tribune publisjies 
a letter of his. dated Natchez, Marcii 1, 1831, as Ibllows : 

" Dear Sir : As I promi.sed at our pjarli.ig to give you my views on any suliject which miglit 
be interesting to our CDnimon constituents, 1 hasten to say that Mississippi will with griMit una- 
nimity sustain you on the Deposit Qluestion. In fact, tJie p'ublic voice demands a I'esioration of 
the Deposits, and the crc'iing a Bank to sujjjjly a general currency. A State Bank can no 



folk's secretary and printer, on buying congressmen. 99 

the Ways and Means in 1834, It was Polk who, when John Slidell had beea 
elected to Congress from La., closed his trust with the ix;ople by sending him 
out to Mexico, without asking the senate's consent. How many salaries, out- 
fits, and Mexican and Russian ambassadors has th« Union paid since 1S2S, M. 
C's inclusive 1 



more supply and govern the general cuiTcncy than a State Government can direct and control 
the affairs of the Nation. Go on ; your constituents are with you ; the country mu.st be relieved 
from the frightful scenes of distrcs.s which have visited us. Yoiu's truly, 

il. J. WALKER.' 

Walker's appointments in this State have been much influenced by his colleague, Marcy. 
In general, they could not well be worse than they are. Our custom-house, the headquarters of 
intrigue and corruption for the city, is under his especial supervision and care. The pious Polk 
invoices providence, omnipotence heaven, and all that is good and great, to ^uide him — and 
tlien pitches upon a secretary oi the treasmy I'rom the repudiating state of Mississippi — that 
secretary the prince of speculators — and whose moneyed transaciions were io situated' that he 
oould not pay Van Brnvn for his fmTiitare, and had judgments agi^inst him advertised for sale 
in the Nafchez Courier, by llie Union Banlc of Mississippi, for some twentv-five to My thousand 
dollars, which diat paragon of banks sadly needed to pay the galled and clieatcd pec^le. I say 
nothing of t/K hst iwte of hand. If the splidt of seventy-six is the spirit tlaat nov.' animates Ame- 
rican bjsoms, I shall be" justified in these sti'ictures, even upon those who sit highest in the confi- 
dence of the freemen of America. 

In John C. Spencer's edition of De Tocqueville, I find the remark, " I have heard of patri- 
O'y'ism in ths UaiteJ States, and it is a virtue which may be found among the j>eo"ji]e, but 
O'.iever among t.ie leaders of the people, in all governments, whatever ilieir nrture may 
|5*;)2, servility will cju'er to fo.o", ani adulation will ciing to powej-. It would hav« b.-eo 
f;;^anpo.ssib;e for the sycophants of Louis XiV. to flatter more dextrrously" than the coor- 
Uers of A nei'ica. Jeff'rsoa, writing to Thomia M'lican, F?b. 2, 18)1, telis him that 
55"' Intejfji'ences at elections, whether of the stite or federal government, by oilicers of the 
|i;^taiter, shoad be d:euied cause of removal ; becaus-e the constitutional remely by the ektv 
l^-'tive principle b3CQ.n:;s nothing if it miy be smotJiexed by the enormous patronage of the 
O'g'^"-'"'!' gjvernaient." Now, It" inter. breaice with the frceiom of elections is bad, are ncft 
loiu^.tatioiis to the foectors, by the executive, to b tray those who elected tlaciii much worto 1 

In a letter to Presiienl Miiison, whici: • iinl in the ilicujioND i:.Naf!Rf:R by T. 
Ritchie, dated June 29, I8ld, die appointment of Biickner Thurston aui Benjamin Hovs'ard,. 
bjih m.emb-;rs of Congt-e«s, the one to be a judge, ai^d the other the govej-nor of a tej-riiory (by 
the President), is sternly reprolviteJ, because that so long as they were •' invested with the 
legislative character, it is tiie duty of the President to leave it around tlicni." 

President xMadlsou is rem n lei tliat tlie pati-iot, Macoa, hid moved the following amend- 
raeat t^) the constitution a few months previous : " No senator or r:'presentativc, alter having 
taken his siit, shall, d.n"ing the ximi for which he was elc^el, be eligible to any civil a;'*- 
pointment under the auUiority o[ the United Stales, nor shall any person be eligible to any 
such appointment until tlie cjcpiration of the Presidential term, duiing wliich s-uch person 
shall have been a senator or repre-sentative." 

The editor of Thj Union, tliat now is — the man whose son is lessening the number of opp.->- 
siUon wnt-'rs, by violence, and who himseU' abused me, at the de.Hii-c oi President Polk, Tm: 
braving the danger of exposing state criminals high in power, through their' own confessions 
— ^promulgated Uie following pure doctj-ines in 1810 : 

" Sir, il ever the Executive branch, in this counli-y, acquircf^ an undue ascendancy over the 
legislature, it will not be, as it is now in France^ through the sword — but by cnrni'piioii, as it 
is in Great Britain. It is true, sir, that no p/tKcmnn m- pcmioncr ceax sit on Uie flooi" of Con- 
gress, as they do in Pailiamcnt — but places and appointments may now be scattered among 
tnose who sit on that floor. 

" Will you maa-k the danger of this distribution of offices 1 Will not the senator or rcnreseo- 
tativc, who wishes for an executive gift, alwa\-s take cfire to a^nsidt the exex:\ui\-e wishes, in 
his measures or vote^ 1 Instead of watching die misconduct of the Piv.sidcnt, will he not con- 
nive at it "? Will nt>t Cerberus sleep becau.se'he wishes for a sop 1 if the President should ha\-B 
evil designs to accomplish, here then are iu>tmment.-; disciplined to his hand-— a fair exchange 
is strudc between th >m. The one barters his cousciencic^ lor tlie oiiiee — just as much as il'he 
were to barter a piece of land lor a piece of gold. I know it is impossible to bribe botli houses 
of Congress by such temptations. I know that there are some of them who are too virtuous 
to catch the contagion, but it is certain that in proportion to the extent of thir. corruption, will 
be the ruin of public morals and of public spirit. Arc not offices of almost every acscri{>tioii 
within the Executive Patronage 1 Diudug the yeai- 1798, Mr. Gallatin estimated the amount 
within his gill at S2,00a,000. And where the mere lust of lucre coukl not sway the man, thera 



100 VAN BUREN TAKING LESSONS AS A COURTIER, WHILE IN LONDON. 



C H A P T E R XXI V. 

I shall ever regaid 1113' situation in that cabinet as one of the mo^t ibrtunate events of my 
life, niacin;? me as it did in close and familiar relations Avith one who has been well described 
by Mr. Jciierson as possessing more of the Roman in his character than any man living, and 
whose administi'ation will be looked to, iw future times, as 11 golden, era in our histoiy. To have 
served under such a chief, at such a time, and to ha^T won his confidence and esteem is a suf- 
ficient glory. — Van Biircn'a letfrr to Waller Bmriie^ James Campbell, Preserved Fish, Wm. M. 
Price, Elisha Ttbbels, Gideon IjCe, C. W. Lovrenrr, ^-r., Lovdmi, Feb. 24, 183-2. «/ his position 
in Jaekfon's first rabivct. 

Van Bvren present tdhy Boitne with the Freedom of N^. Y. and a good Character — 
C. C. Cambrelenij. — JacliS07l''s First Cabinet. — Some facts about Leicis Cass. 
— His War F-rphnts, Politeness., Notions of Slavery., Friendship to the Indians, 
Vast Wealth, Indian Agencies, Loirs, Floquence in Senate, and Notions about 
Texas. — Calhoun\s Position. — The Seminole War. — Monroe^s Secret Letter.^ 
to JacLfon. — .Juhnny Kay. — Intrigues by Hamilton, Crattford, Forsyth and 
others, to injure Calhoun and benefit Van Buren. — .lackson Quarrels leith Cal- 
houn. — CJn the Publication of Political Secrets. — John Henry Batcn and Wife. 
— .Tackson Qtiarrels ivith three of his Cabinet about htr. — The Russian Mission. 
— Branch on Van Buren. — John Tyler and a Second Term. — Van Buren sent 
as Envoy to London, but Rejected by the Senate. — Opinions of Webster, Clay, 
Frelinohiiysen, Foot, &;c. — The Colonial Trade. — Van Buren elected Vice 
President. 

Having resigned his office as governor, on the 12th of Ivlarch, 1829, Van 
Buren left Albany, accompanied by his friend and confederate, B. F. Butler, on 
the forenoon of the 17th, to take upon himself the duties of Premier, Secretary 



are offices of distinction to invite and soothe his ambition. * * * In the making of Laws, it is 
for the members of Congress to have a simple eye to the interests of their country. It is for 
them to decide upon the merits of every question that comes Ix'fore them, without either hope 
or fear, without compulsion or reward. From the moment tliat they are led astray by such 
inducements, they are shorn ot their representative character — they cease to he the agents of 
the people, to become the tools of the Executive." 

Will it be believed that the man who could publish these truths in ISIO, is now groAvn so 
grey in sin that he has for sixteen years upheld the violators of right,. and at length accepted 
office from those who practi.se what is here so justly condemned ! 

Jackson, to get po))ularity for himself and his friends, recommended INTacon's measure of 
1809, to proliiiut this buying and liribing of needy and greedy congressmen ; Imt it was a 
deception, for he practised continually the baiting system. Benton, too. when he and Van 
Buren were seeking power and popularity in IH'it), matle, with the help of Van Buren, a grand 
report against tho.se abuses which liave brought i'ree institutions into disgrace all over the 
world, but the report was never acted on, nor meant to be. It was an electioneering trap to 
catch voters. 

I have seen a list of congressmen whom Van Buren a;ul Jack.son tempted to leave the pec;- 
ple and take olhces of far more emolument under the executive, but I am not sure that it was 
correct. It contained seventy-five names, anil among these were, for the Russian mission 
sinecure, John Randolph, James Buciianan, W. Wilkins, ^;),000 a year, and ^rl'jOOO outfit, 
for a trip to the continent. Cambreleng and Wilkins's brother-in-law,' V. P. Dallas, had also 
the .if 18,1)00 godsend to Pelersbnrgh, but M-ere out of Congress before being rewarded. There 
is anotiier Ixussian minister since, antl doubtless we will .'<oon have one more, if not half a 
dozen. [Duane of Pennsylvania, as a bribe or inducement to take an unfair course, was offer- 
ed by Jackson, 0°'lit^ Russian mission, and so Avas Samuel D. Ingham, by Avay of '• a sop to 
Penn.sylvania," as he tells in his letter to the President, July 'JG, JH31, in which he accu.ses 
Jackson with duplicity and falsehood ; with secretly cherished hostility to him, and with cre- 
dulity and imbecility. There is no doubt but that \wwnmnnnoged by Van Riuen and his 
as.sociates t(j gicat advantage for fj- themselves.] Eli Moore, S. H. Gliol.son, Arnold Plum- 
mer, Felix Grundy, Leonard Jarvis. and G'orham Parks, and C. C. Cambreleng were re- 
jected as candidates for Congress, and instanth' placed in lucrative offices by Van Bureu. 



WEEDING OUT CONGRESS. C. C. CAMBRELENG. 101 

of State, or Minister of Foreign Affairs, at Washington. He stopt a short time 
at Kinderhooli, Hudson, Pouglikeepsie, ficc, and soon after his arrival at New 
Yoric, was presented by the Mayor and Aldermen with " the freedom of the 
city," which had been voted to him on the 23d, on motion of Jesse Hoyt's 
friend, Cebra, who is said to have had a hint from' Cambreleng.* Corporations 

John Forsyth was taken out of Coiigrass by Jackson and Van Buren, to be Secretary of State 
— R. T. Lyttle to be Surveyor General of Ohio— Jesse Miller to be first auditor ("and such 
an auditor !]—H. H. Leavitt to be a district judge— J. M. Wavne to be a jud-e r;$4 5001~ 
Geo. Loyall to be a navy agent— Jolm Branch to be secretary of the naw— John h' Eaton 
to be secretary at war— Thomas P. Moore to he ambassador to Columbia— Louis M'Lane to 
be ambassador to London— William C. Rives to be ambassador to France— E. Livingston and 
Levi Woodbury to cabmet offices— Jeromus Johnson [see him in correspondence !] to be an ap- 
praiser— J. S. Penn3'backer to be a judge, and it is my impression that H. A. Muhlenberg 
was a member of Congress when sent to AusU'la— Philip P. Barliour when placed on the 
Supreme Court Bench— Powhattan Ellis when sent to Mexico— and Nathaniel Garrow when 
appointed marshal— but it may be that in one or two instances the executive reward was not 
conferred till the recipient had been rejected at the hustings, or had retired. 

One grand secret was soon found out bv Stevenson, namely, to pay court to Van Buren and 
his confederates. He is uncle to the wife of one of Van Buren's sons, and one of his steadiest 
.supporters. On the 9th of May, 1834, J. Q.. Adams uioved to refuse that part of the money vo^e 
ot the year which granted $18,000 to ambassadors in Russia and England, as there were none 
and these honors and emoluments held in terrorem, as attractions to members of Con<^ress' 
The yeas vv^ere 69, and among them Wise, Selden, Slade, Vance, Gilmer, Corwin and Lincoln' 
The nays were Vanderpool, Gillel, Cambrelensr, J. B. Sutherland. Polk (tec 123 About a 
month afterwards it was found that Speaker Stevenson had had the promise of the London 
mission for fifteen months ! ! ! Have I not shown that Jackson was right, when in 18-^5 he de 
Glared that if congressmen were not kept out of executive offices until two years after the term 
for which the people had elected them, « corruption would be the order of the day •" as also that 
he, his confederates. Van Buren, Polk, Ritchie, and their partisans were guilty'of the practices 
they affected to condemn 1 The more I look into the past, into facts, the 'more I see the neces- 
sity, not only of a state, but also of a national convention. If we have not reform we shall 
have worse : while England is really improving her defective institutions, we are allowin-^ bad 
men to trample our more pure system into the veiT dust. In the language of Web'^ter " Our 
political institutions— our government itself, is made an engine of corruption, and undoes what 
our social institutions perform. The pati'onage of government, offices, and emoluments are 
considered as rewards, instead of being regarded as necessary agencies of the people • the 
hopes and fears attendant upon this state of things ; the desire to get office and the apprehension 
ot losing it, all become motives of action, and lead many to a course never dictated by feelin'^s 
of patriotism, if such people ever feel patriotism." ^ 

_ * Churchill Caldom Cambrelen-g.— This gentleman's letters require no comment. If he 
IS not_ an unscrupulous, unprincipled partisan, where shall we find one 1 His motives in 
attacking the b.j mihion bank at Philadelphia were to get a 3.5 million bank at New York or 
a new United States Bank, through the Boston and Portland people, who were leadin- the 
way On tne Ibtn of October, 183-2, he hinted to Hovt that the stockjobbers of Wall Street 
ought to ' follow the Bostonians and Portland people i:^ in a-sking for A NEW BANK 
from the federal govermnent, but on the plan they propose."' His notions of honor and confi- 
dence with respect to private letters, need no remark. His stock speculations as one of the 
Van buren Hort, and Butler clique, are well knovni; and his efforts to mock the workies 
and make them his mstruments, for no noble and worthy purpose, show that, like Van Buren' 
he has quite enough of the cunning of the fox. He wanted to be Consul at Liverpool but 
Frank Ogdens interest was too heavy for him there. The Custom House, in Hovt's'and 
bwartwout s time, Avas a political machine for raining milled dollars into the palms of his 
parasites, and as Lawrence is the old confederate of Hovt and Swartwout, Cambreleno-'s 
influence tnere now must be very considerable. That sinecufe, the Russian embassy which 
L^Q nar.^° cleverly for paying off - old and active politicians.^' produced to him, in Kis turn 
■|18,000 and the et ceteras. He was for the pets in '34, for the sub-treasury in '37— for Je«se 
Hoytas coHector, and for Coddington as postmaster. When Van Buren took his southern 
tour, in 182/, Cambreleng was his companion or pilot-fish. He was an old CraAvford man 
ana treated Calhoun, in 1827, about as honorably as he did Webb, a i''ew years later The 
confidential letter to which Cambreleng refers, page 234, No. 225, as one which A. S. Clavton 
°' i^^^'IV^' '™!3'^ P^^l^li*. «'as written by Webb, and appears in the Courier and Enquirer 
ot Sept. 2j, 1832, credited to the Milledgeville papers. Webb there says, " We have alone 
and single-nanded fought the battle of the SOUTH. In us Georgia has found a bold and 
sieamast ineud, &c. Mohawk and Hudson Railroad stock was actually puffed up to 196 by 



102 VAN BUBEN AND THE FREEDOM. THE MOHAWK STOCK. LEWIS CASS. 

■worship risino; luminaries, seemingly from habit— and the resolution in Van 
Buren's case, declared him to be one of the state's "brightest sons," whose 
pure republicanism, patriotism and public spirit caused the corporators to 
" deeply deplore" the necessity which had called on them " to surrender" mm 
to Andrew Jackson. Walter Bowne, the mayor who afterwards whined so 
piteously for a few bao-s of the public treasure from that " revered chief," said to 
the secretary elect, ''^you have had to encounter the persecution of enemies 
and the treachery of friends— but your uprightness^ your wisdom, and courage, 
have borne you 'in triumph through every conflict. The sarne powerful mtel- 
lect, untiring industry, and devoted patriotism, con.stituting at once your glory 
and vour strength. During the whole of your career, not a single event has 
occurred to dim for one moment, the lustre of a reputation, which has been 
continually increasing in brightness." The mayor then presented " the free- 
dom," in a golden box, and Van Buren delivered a suitable response about har- 
mony, " liberality, moderation, justice and firmness," remarking, rather quaintly, 
" WE ARE ALL F.MEAHKEO IN THE SAME BOTTOM." After giving audicnces to 
officeseekers, political schemers, holders of French claims, bankers, brokers, 
and blacklegs ; arranging plans for the future with the party leaders ; receiving 
judicious hints from the merchants; and very probably settling with some ot 
his most intere.'^ted partisans, how best to open the future campaign against the 
United States Bank, he departed for the south to begin that twelve years course 
of darino- and successful intrigue which had scarcely closed when he landed at 
the battery, in the midst of storms, and tempests, leaving the fickle dame ca led 
Fortune with her new "favorite son," William Henry Harrison, who, like 
Nelson at Trafalgar, was soon to expire in the arms of victory. 

Jackson's first Vabinet [which soon gave place to Messrs. Livingston, McLane, 
Cass,* Woodbury and Barry,] consisted of Messrs. Van Buren, Eaton, Ingham, 

holders, who ihen sold out, and down went the shares to 117. Webh and ^-oah explain Cam- 
breleng's course in this and other stock operations. He i.-i a candiantc in SuflTulk lor a se, t m 
the state convention of next June. He was anxious to secure the extension ot hlaverv to M i.^ 
souri in 1819, and to Florida and Texns in 184G; and he reported from the Ways and Means, 
in Contrress, Dcccmbe;- 182G, that " the commerce of a confederacy, internal and e.xternal, 
should be M'holly iVee.^' Noah says of him, Oct. 24, 1834, "It is now more than \l);^^l^ 
since Cambreleng has been foisted upon this community, and we challenge any man to point 
out a single measure of his recommendation, calculated to benefit the country, llaving no 
wife no child, no domicile- no interest, nothing to attach him to the soil here, except scvte 
hyjntJieceded Mohawk stool: , and being verv uselul to Van Buren in more ways t»an one he s 
t6 have a perpetual seat in Congress." If 1 could not stale one particular o V. B. s l"e iiie 
characters he associates with would show vcrv clearly vhat he is. Like Folic, with v lom ne 
is very intimate, Cambreleng is a native of North CaroMna-old in years, very short made, 
and very stout— no jrreat orator, but well acquainted with business and politics. Messis. 
Webb and Noah, in1he Courier and Enquirer of lOth September, 1832, say : 

•'Ii is well Unoun li. r ■ ih.t Mr. riMis '■.^\ Tilibit s nnd llic Mtl.' g.M.tl.itmn [Cainbr ten] .-irep'nck sppciila'ors 
whn-e h." .i i y to ,.,e « ... „f ,h.-S'uit d S ..c< ■^j.nrcly mrrccvary. T -^V ^^ "IP'^f' ''.' %%t r'fn.br .'' g 
heciius they wi.m. a new Bank l..r the (miposc -f ri-i-ciilaUns uprni n.w s ..ck. I'.n >««--'\c V-'fs ; «>i ' B 

Cr,c,v,.||,(>lc.nteC.... than his ..I.Msex,,.n.le.l. * » * * ,^^^"""1' '^^;"p "'/^ n' . '6 ^H ^ m 
but Mr Ci.ml.relpng .ouKt l.ave succ.M.,1rd in rni.i.iff the Mol.nwk a..<l Um. <nn \Xm\ ^'"■"\^''''^\\'^^T.^^^^^^^^ 
flg..! ihat w. 11, tur.m^h ihe ag.'Mcy i.f the Alh.ny firm-sold out at ihe nick ot Umv— .es.gned lil» n|.| " ii nunl, 
niid rail ntl'to VVahhinjiMn. Jlis .'■tuck is now w..rlh li:). having deprt-ciaiod 8 ; per ciiit lu tit's t..ai. a >. .ir. 

If Cambreleng believed that the U. S. Bank could not establish a ^^^^ch in any state with- 
out a gross violation of the constitution, whv did he accept a fee ot ,5'1 000 from biaaie, lor 
locating H branch at B-ulTalo l He voted against Jackson for Pi-c^^Llenl, in lS2o, in Congress, 
and for Van Buren as governor at the Herkimer Convention ol 1S28. 

♦ Lf.wis Cass was born at Exeter, N. H.-romovcd with his.fathcr and family to the .state of 
Delaware, in or about the year 1705 or 'G-icmained several years there, '1"^ ''''^'•^^.'^"VQ-^^f f^ 
west to Marietta, Ohio, in 1709-studied law there, and began to practise m 1802 In IWUt^J^e 
was elected to the Ohio legislature, antl on the 11th of December mtroduced a hill to suspena 
the writ of habeas corpus, on account of Burr's a>nsmracy. Next year he was appointea 
United States Marshal, which office he held till 1813. The 3d Ohio Volunteers elected hun 



CASS, AS GOVERNOR, SENATOR, AND MICHiaAN NABOB. 103 

Branch and Berrien ; of whom the three last named were warm friends of CaU 
noun. 1 he President and Eaton were, at heart, opposed to Calhoun, and in the 

n!i'Jf^°H^',f'''''u''^^^' regiment lie joined General Hull and marched from Dayton to 

r?f P ;• ^"^^ '^'f ^""^ ^7°'-' ^^ Sandvv-ich, withi 280 men, and Lieut. Col. Miller to sS what 

^Jhu^ ^^^ere about, and atterwards crossed to Canada himself, but being^dTnd the fiie o f 

youth all gone, If he ever bad any, he .soon retreated before a very iiiferioi^bice and .£Sn 

dered Detroit. Cass was sent to Washington, where he gave Dr. Eust s S SememS nn 

accomit the campaign My impression is, that he behaved well ; but^ mimia cJbTel with 

out a military education had not much chance to distinguish himself. It was <^?e? cruelTv ?o 

the country not to shoot Hull, as sentenced. The exam'ple was much wanS in'tho e d-n's^^nd 

It was the late he richly merited, by his bulMng proclamations and "e cmvardke Cass wa^ 

. appointed Governor oi Michigan by Madison,"in 1813. He held tha? office ef'hteenve^s^ 

and, being considered more suitable for the purposes and policy of Van BuTen and JacK' 

?p L'^Ssl ?abS -j^^^l^am— eeded^oV war de?artn^ent immedi"tdy a?ter t'bK 

ri^, c PK-i ^^'^^'?^'- i" ^^•^^> Jackson sent him to represent his government at the court of 

Louis Philippe, where he remained till December, 1842, and has tince been elected^^ he 

Umted States Senate from Michigan. In 1811, he was named as a Sidate Sr the Prit 

feou? H'i^''no;'Vf rV"^"dly to hhn, and published in his Enquirer mnvlettSs in 

a lont skeich rfhF; ?r JsS m' ' ?k"'''' '" '^f ^T'' ^"' '^'''' °^'^^<^ ^^'^ville Union, copiS 
t,?\ ■ r^i° his [Lass s] hie, by request," as he took care to state Cass was and i- a 
favorite in Ohio, With what is called the conservative, "or pet banks for eC-ei-mrtv-and 
having made a few flojmshes while in France about the ty?a my of En-land and a l~h?t 

?8.hT/SS"';8'loT,i,W "f 1^' '°^'^ '•! ^¥ "^^' '''''' '■" "^^'^'^^ very lavSble to inotiS 
afes or 66^;ears ot^i^ir il'l'Y^ ''''''"' ^e keeps up this ' free and indep/ndent' character, but 
ac 03 or Ob years ot age, it is to be presumed that his fighting days are all over H is nnnosirion 

he quintuple treaty against slavery, and affected or real hidign^ion a England's "Km? 

Srti > SSr"£-if tlfi'v" «''-PP--i"», ^h^«|-<^ ^-de, u^nti/^Very'ia- wa^ ext "a'd 
w!s qS ^ rel ; to bnrM- n' w -f ''^^ F'''''^' H'^',l'^-«.^« ^oW and calculating Van Buren, he 
was quit, read/ to bartei New Hampshire and Ohio fee ings for a phalanx o^ southern v< f -s 
SL'S'^h'- V^' P'-s^^'^^tial chair the revolting spectacle of a Cklin^ New E nindS' 
p aymg uia hireling, as the attorney of a set of men whase notions of liber rareb^terrSlS 
m 1 exas as it is, than as it ought to be. Ritchie and his clique would have preS ed SS 
Van Buren, bu Polk was still better. The yoke over tlii-ee "nillions of iXck^v ncc « in N?rth 
t^sS^^^^y^ ^"""Tf^ "^' \'^'''^ ^y '>'"' ^^^ho, with his ancestoi? h/d alwaVs bo^^^ 
tl^i hLpS ot How w'lf ri' ? ',T^ "'r 'Yl '^^"^^ "f '^'' '^^Shie^t ameliLSfS 
How nat Slv h« Sror L ;^n\:" r '^l ""'''' """"^ l^"- ""''''■ ^'' ''"'' "^^« '•'^a% admirable. 

SMrJm"?,m,-7„?,'l!': .¥!»",™^0" ". Vf Willi Ws liMJy feelii,i;s for the serfs. When ihe 

Pop elJeSSi'-^Ltj^S^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

resides, sent three Van Lren men to the <^^'l^'.^l\ll'.X^Z^^^^^ 



104 CASSj AS SECRETARY OF WAR, INDIAN AGENT, AND AMBASSADOR. 

interest of Van Buren. I do not at all doubt that Van Buren's letter to Hoyt, 
pao-e 216, truly describes his standing with General Jackson : " / have found 

stood, 29 for Van Bui-en, and but 22 for Cass, of which the city sent a majority opposed to him. 
if this is so, his popularity among those who had had most dealings with him, was not very 
strong. 

When he left Detroit for Washington, in June, 1831, he became, as Secretary of War, the 
official principal in .settling the accounts of his five Indian Agencies, and of immense disbiuse- 
ments made by hiin for the U. S. government. He settled his own accounts ; perhaps with the 
aid of some dependent auditor, and perhaps not. Witli Antkew Stevenson as Speaker, regu- 
lating the committees,' and the gilded bait of a London mission placed ever before his eyes, con- 
gressional inquiry was but an imaginary check. Yet all may have been perfectly correct. 
Who can know anything to the contrary'! As settled with, Cass was assuredly no defaulter. 
The Portland Advertiser remarks, that prior to the time of being Secretary of War, he was 
Governor of Micliigan— then a territory— and superintendent of Indian affaii's. Both offices 
were given by the general government, and both salary offices. The business of the Superin- 
tendent was with the Secretary of War. Coming from this office, theretbre, to the War 
department, Gfovernor Cass had the power to settle his oAvn accounts with his own hands, and 
almost upon his ovv-n terms. He had been a contractor, receiver and disburser, and became 
debtor and creditor and examiner of his own accounts." 

John Bell, Harrison's War Secretary, winds up his annual or other report with some 
very lefi-handed compliments to Indian Agents relative to their honestj-, but names nobody. 
He was soon ousted. 

In the matter of the U. S. Bank, Cass, in the cabinet, was assm-edly no Duane. The pre- 
sident had no need to ofier to componnd with his tender conscience by an offer of ' the Russian 
mission.' Long after the bank was delunct, society ascertained tlu-ough a letter to G. O. Whit- 
temore, that Lewis Cass " had never seen in the constitution of the U. S. a sufficient grant ot 
power" to establish a national bank. Of course he thought Madison very wrong indeed, M-hen 
he signed the national bank charter in 1816, and also Crawford, Monroe, Calhoun, Clay, Van 
Buren and the Supreme Court, in defending the act, but, being Governor of Michigan, by 
Madison's appointment, just then, he was far too polite and civil to say so. So he was, but he 
always thought so. So he did. In Sept. 1834, in the Telegraph, General Green described 
Cass, as " For a Bank— for iiUernal improvements— tai'iff so-so— a little anti-Supreme Comt— 
friend of the Indians, and no friend." 

General Cass's laws, when Governor of the territory of Michigan, were, some of them, as 
peculiar as ' the peculiar institution' of the south. The following enactment, if extended to jus- 
tices of the peace here, would much delight many honest men wlio may have been so unfortu- 
nate as to brealv the commancbuent numlier eight, as also their worships of the quorum, who 
would be sure of heavy fees, prompt pay, and no need to tax bills. Poor sinners, as usual, 
would be excluded from the benefits. No pay, no pardon ! 

" An Act for Pardoning Alexander Odion.— Be it enacted by the governor and judges of the 
territory of Michigan, that Alexander Odion, now imprisoned in the county gaol ot the county- 
of Wayne, upon a conviction for larceny, be pardoned and released from gaol upon condition 
that he pay to the Sherilfof the said county, the costs and expenses which have accrued from 
the time of his apprehension till his di.scliarge. The same being adopted from the laws ot 
one of the original states, to wit, the state of New York, as far as necessary and suitable to 
the circumstances of the territory of Michigan. Made, adopted and published at the city of 
Detroit, in the territory of Michigan, this 7th day of August in the year of our Lord, 1817. 
(Signed) Lewis Cass, Guvcniar of the territory of MiehigaJi.' 

A few months ])eforc General Harrison died, one would have thought that if the official 
newspaper of the Union at Washington was entitled to credit for veracity, lie must have 
bi^en one of the greatest of monsters, one of the worst of men. When he died, Cass, at Pans, 
delivered a very long oration to his memory, from which one would have judged that he mu.^t 
have been " one of the greatest and best" of men— all this, too, on personal knowledge. 

When dcf>>ated in what some suppose to have been the great object of Ins wishes, by the 
decision in favour of Polk, Ca.'^s wrote to E. AVorrell and others, that lie was delighted with 
the choice the Baltimore Convention had made of such "firm, consistent, able, and lione.st 
citizens as Messrs Polk and Dallas, both olwliom he knew intimately, and that " they would 
never disappoint the expectations of OUR party, nor of the country." Perhaps he really was 
delighted He had written from Paris, 10 Aug. 1841, " My conviction is, that tliere is nothing 
in mv nresent position, nothino in my past career, which should lead to my selection lor 
such a mark of confidence. My repugnance is great, ^T ALMOST invincible. ' How 
sorrv the friends of Peace must be ! That is, in case Polk should set the world m a blaze. 
Mr. Richard Rush wrote Aaron Hoban, of Boston, Jan. 4, 1844, that, aficr an acquaintance 
of more than thirty years, he wanted General Ca-ss to be electea, " Because to have a 



CASS ANGLING FOR THE AMERICAN DIADEM. 105 

Aim," says he, " affcclionate, confidential, and kind to the last degree ; and am 
entirely satisfied that there is no degree of good feeling or confidence which he does 
not entertain for me.^^ 

The lirst measures of consequence in which Van Buren was engaged, appear 
to have been the preparation oi' suitable instructions relative to commerce, tariffs, 
navigation, and boundaries, and the adjustment of claims, for the guidance of the 
U. S. envoys and other agents in England, France, Mexico, Spain, &c. 

In the prosecution of the U.S. claims on France, he seems to have persuaded 
JacKson to assume a tone of menace and defiance, very unlike indeed to his 
honied accents when addressing imperial England. The aggrandizement of 
those banlwand mercantile concei'ns on which he placed dependence, as forming 
material for the construction of a step-ladder by which, in time, he might be 
elevated to the Presidency, was not forgotten ; nor did he hesitate to intrigue 
for the destruction of the LF. S. Bank, froai the moment in which he sav/ Jackson 

man like him President, would be the most likely means of keeping us OUT OP WAR, under 
menacing; questions that hang over us." Methinks friend Rush woukl have left this because 
oat of his catalogu?, had he heard ths gallant general's trumpet tongued notes in the capitol 
this session, all ending in 51'' 40', for which, however, some wicked wags affirm that he don't 
care a rush. Brougham said of Cass's efforts to please the cotton growing states by opposing 
the anti-slavery treaty, " And he has done all this for what '? For the sake of furthering his 
own electioneering interest in America, and helping himself to that seat the possession of 
which he envied Mr. Tyler — the seat of the first magistrate of that mighty republic. My 
lords (continued Brougham), I hope and trust, for the sake of America, of England, and ot 
humanity and mankind at large, that the prosperity and happiness of that great people will be 
perpetuated for ever." 

In his protest, Cass accused England of duplicity. Webster replied : " You will perceive 
that, in the opinion of this Government, cruising against slave dealers on the coast of Atrica is 
not all that is necessary to be done, in order to put an end to the traffic. There are markets for 
slaves, or the unhappy natives of Africa would not be seized, chained, and carried over the 
ocean into slavery. These markets ought to be .shut. And in the treaty, the high contracting 
parties have stipulated ' that they will unite in all becoming representations and remonstrances 
with any and all powers within whose dominions such markets are allowed to exist; 
and that they will m-ge the propriety and duty of closing such markets at once and for 
ever." 

Cass's efforts in France prevented the ratification, by that nation, of a mutual concession 
treaty, by representing England as insincere, and desirous to enforce her old designs of im- 
pressmeiit, searching for her seamen, &c. ' President Tyler approved highly of Cass's conduct. 
Webb, of the Com-ier and Enquirer, rarely mi-sses a defence of Cass or of Marcy. He evi- 
dently likes many of his brother editors of the Whig party much woi'se than he does the demo- 
cracy of Cass and Marcy. He and they ai'e thorough-going friends of negi-o-slavery in its 
very worst forms. , 

General Cass is the Secretary who issued orders to Gaines to invade Texas. Of course he 
approved of these orders. Had it not been .so, he could have resigned his place. He is by 
no means the equal in ability of Clay and Calhoun, nor does he possess the excellent heart, the 
kindly feelings of Col. Johnson. Van Buren has less mental power than either Clay, Calhoun 
or Cass ; yet, notwithstanding a life of intrigue and demagogueism, chance did the miost for him. 
Van Buren preferred Cass to Calhoun, and Calhoun preferred Polk to Cass. The new divisions 
of party are north and south, slave owner and freeman. Southern policy is to give to us north- 
erns a master, and to ensure om' bondage to the spread of their .system by dividing us, and 
engaging and bargaining with the Marcys, Walkers, and other cunning men v/ho have popu- 
larity without liberality. Calhoun was hot for Texas, but, as to Oregon, he urged us to be 
still. Polk does not differ from him. Had 1 voted in Nov. 1844, Polk would have had my 
suffrage, because he stood pledged to act with perfect equality to the foreign born and the native, 
while clay stood silent, with our native bigots, the foreigner's avowed enemies, in his front 
ranks. If there is to be a slave class, and a master class, I shall not willingly forge my o^vn 
fetters. Had I supported Polk, however, which I did not, I would have been,"as others are, his 
dupe. Those who are intimate with Gov. Cass, tell me, that his manners ai-e pleasing ; that 
he is courteous ; a good scholar ; an amiable man ; a good husband and father. He is a large 
sized, portly man, with a big head ; and carries his political principles, liivc a countrv^ doctor'.s 
wallet of medicines, in a convenient, portable form. He played his card well in the "game of 
presilent making, in 1841 — and, after Van Buren's election, there's no knowing what may 
iiappen two years hence. Cass is, by trade, a politician, and has mind and gi-eat experience. 



106 JACKSON, CALHOUN, AND THE SEMINOLE WAR. 

in possession of substantial power. The President was speedily involved in a 
quarrel with the directors of the U. S. branch at Portsmouth, N. H., and the 
breach when made was easily widened. 

The influence of the cabinet ; its patronage ; the means its members had of 
giving a direction to public opinion on certain important subjects ; their views, 
connections, expectations, wishes ; the majority of them desirous to see Calhoun 
the next President ; Calhoun himself already at the head of the Senate as V'ice 
President ; with the Telegraph press and patronage of Congress in the hands of 
its indefatigable editor. General Duff Green, at his back ; presented a state of 
things which neither Jackson nor Van Buren liked, so they resolved upon a dis- 
solution of the cabinet, as the only plausible means of getting rid of Branch, 
Ingham, and Berrien. One pretext for a quarrel was found, in the fact that 
President Monroe, and his Secretary of War, Calhoun, had not been altogether 
satisfied with Jacxson's mode of conducting the Seminole war,* — and this was 

* What are the facts on the Seminole question'! They are these. Jackson was 
employed by Monroe, and his cabinet, which then consisted of Crawford, Adams, Calhoun, 
Wirt, and Crowninshield, to chastise certain Indian tribes or bands, whose home was in 
Florida, a possession of Spain. He disobeyed, or rather transcended his orders, and on the 
19th of July, 1818, President Monroe wrote him privately, that when called into service 
against th3 Seminoles. " the views and intentions ot' the government were fully disclosed in 
respect to the operations in Florida. IN TRANSCENDING THii LIMIT PilESCRIBED 
BY THOSE ORDERS, you acted on your own responsibility." Mr. Monroe said, it was 
right to attack the Seminoles in Florida, for they had a sort of sovereignty there, " but an 
or lir b/ the governin^nt to attack a Spanish post would assume anoiner character. IT 
WOUilD AUrtlORIZE WAR. CONGRESS ALONE POSSESS THAT POWER." 
Jacksj.i hii siizji an 1 held tho posts or fjrts of Spain in tira3 oi'pjace. Hill had denjuuced 
him, so had Ritchie, and Noah. Coleman of the Post, Feb. 8, 1819, said, that " in spite of 
tha vat3s which one branch of the legislature have passed, we shall continue to think mat the 
cjaduci of General Jackson, in forcibly entering the Spanish territory, and seizing upon the 
civil authority; in decoying, by maans of false colors, two Indian chiefs on boaru of an 
A narican vessel, and than hanging them at the yardarm, one of whom, loo, had spared the 
li.e ol an American captive, at the intercession of his daughters; and in hurrying to a violent 
and ignominious death, two prisjners, after quarter had been granted, can never be juititiid 
by any authority to in found in any civil or religious code." In the British cabinet it was 
serijasly debated whether satisfaction or war ougnt not to b,' the alternative demanied for the 
hinging of Capt. Arbuthnot, who advised the English authorities that Jackson's war mission 
wjis occasioUs^d by persons who were grasping alter the lands of the Indians, and the southern 
planters desiring to seize and punish their blacli bondsmen for seeking that freedom in a 
Spanish colony which the land of liberty denied. Crawford, in one of his letters, mentioned 
that, about this time Jackson wrote to Monroe, and "gave it as his opinion that tlie Floridas 
ought to be takaa by the United States." He (Jackson) added, " it might be a delicate matter 
for th3 Executive to decide; but the President [Monroe] had only to give a hint to some 
coiifiknliul member of Congres.s, say Johnny Ray, and he would take it, and take the responsi- 
bility upon himself." Was Senator Houston, Jackson's Johnny Ray, in the Texas allUir 1 
Was Senator Yulee, Polk's Johnny Ray, when he introduced a resolution recently to annex 
Cuba, after the highest officials inlllinois had met and advised that measure 1 "VVho are to 
be the Oregon and California Rays ? That President is not very particular in the matter of 
sincerity who pledges himself to all Oregon before an election, oliers to give up 15,000 square 
miles after it, declares to the American p_^ople that oin title is clear and unquestionable to M<» 
40', and then offers a compromise for latitude 49°. 

To return to Monroe's letter to Jackson. He told him that his seizing the fortresses 
of Spain, might involve the Union in a war with that power, when British privateers would 
harass American commerce, and this country not have one Emopean power on its side — and' 
that such a stale of things ought not to be lightly hazarded. He advised Jackson to amend his 
reasons — and in another private letter, dated "Oct. -20, added, " I was sorrv to find that you 
understool vour instructions relative to operations in Florida DIFFERENTLY FROM 
WHAT WE INTENDED." Here he .speaks for himself and his cabinet, especially for 
Calhoun, who was then at the head of ihe department of war, and had issued these instruc- 
tions. Mr. Monroe bids the general write out his views, addine, " This will be answered, so 
as 10 explain ours, in a friendlv manner, bv Mr. Calhoun, WHO HAS VERY JUST AND 
LIBERAL SENTIMENTS ON THE SUBJECT. This will be necessary in the ca.se of a 
call for papers by Congress, or may be. Thus we shall aU stand on the groimd of honor, 



MONROE, ADAMS, CALHOUN, AND THE KINDERHOOK PLOT. 107 

furnished by the confederates of Van Bui'en, and urged through Hamilton and 
Forsyth upon Jackson at the fitting moment, who feigned a feehng of indignation, 
evidently put on, and acted, to rouse Calhoun and bring on an angry dispute. I 
say feigned a feeling, for after Jackson had quarrelled with Calhoun on this 
matter, he remained upon the most cordial and kindly terms with many other 
leading politicians, who, as he well knew, had in ISIS and 1819, been among 

EACH DOING JUSTICE TO THE OTHER, which is the ground on which we wish 
to place each other." 

Adams's vindication of Jackson is on record — Monroe's manly conduct to-wards him in his 
public capacity, was only equalled by his kind and friendly consideration in private. Here 
we see that he frankly told Jackson, that Calhoun's sentiments in the whole matter were very 
just and very liberal, and that his (Jackson's) conduct was not approved, but that reasons were 
sought for its justification that the evils of an unnecessary war might be avoided. How 
could Jackson, when in possession of these secret letters for ten years, pretend, after his elec- 
tion had bean secured through the gigantic efforts of Vice President Calhoun and his friends, 
that he had always understood that Calhoun, as war secretary, had approved of the hangings 
and fortress seizures in a friendly country without war ! Jackson was enraged at Calhoun 
and Crawford in 1818, for not thinking as he did, but Calhoun gave him a party, and the 
quarrel was re\ived at the convenient interval of ten years, to serve Van Buren. As a proof 
that Messrs. Monroe and Calhoun continued to confide in Jackson, and that their ulterior 
views were believed to b2 his, they offered him, in 1823, the mission to Mexico, which he 
would have ace jpied, had not Burr and others more influential, induced him to set his cap for 
the Presidency of the Union. 

Crawfjrd. when he reported, as he had a perfect right to do, at a proper interval of time, 
the secret conversations in Monroe's cabinet, ought to tiave told the truth. Does not his own 
statement show that he did not do so '! and knowing that, how could Jackson or Van Buren 
pretend to depend more on his vindictive yet treacherous memory than on the confidential 
assurances of James Monroe 1 

In 1828, we fin.l John Forsyth, Van Buren's confederate, \\Titing Major James A. Hamilton 
as follows: " MiUedgiviUe, Feb. 8th. Dear Sir: Our friend W. H.Crawford was in this 
" place a few hours yesterday. By his authority I state, in reply to your inquiry, that, at a 
" meeting of Mr. Monroe's c ibinet to discuss the course to be purr-ued' towards Spain, in con- 
'• sequence of General Jackson's proceedings in Florida, during the Seminole war, MR. 
"CALHOUN SUBMITTiiD TO AND URGED UPON THE PRESIDENT THE 
"PROPRIETY AND NECESSITY OF ARRESTING AND TRYING GENERAL 
"JACKSON. MR. MONROE WAS VERY MUCH ANNOYED BY IT." 

Hamilton had previously asked Calhoun the same question. In his letter to him of Feb. 
25, 1828, he says — " In replv to mv inquirj' ' Whether at anv meeting of Mr. Monroe's cabi- 
net the propriety of ARR'iiSTlNG GENERAL JACKSON for anything done by him 
during toe Seminole war, had been at any time discus.se.l,' vou answered, ' SUCH A 
MEASURE WAS NOl' THOUGHT OF— much less discussed. The only paint bejare the 
cabinet W2S the aiU'ic:)' to be given to the Spanish government.^ " 

Hamilton was the dependant of Van Buren — he was fond of money — had been an anti-war 
federalist, and required Van Buren's aid, as Van Buren did his. At the proper moment, the 
information which he had secretly obtained from Crawford's friend, Forsyth, about IHE 
ARREST, was communicated to Jackson. The election was now sure — Branch, Ingham and 
Berrien were true to their principles and their friends — Duf!^ Green stood by Calhoun, who 
had no means of rewarding him, though by so doing he knew that Jackson's and Van Buren's 
indignation and the loss of office and its vast emoluments, would be the certain results. The 
apples of discord had now to be scattered — and Jackson, professing astonishment about the 
ARREST, and not contented with Calhoun's explicit disclaimer to Hamilton, applied to 
Crawford, the political enemy of Calhoun, and who had voted in the cabinet to puni-sh him by 
a disavowal of his Seminole proceedings ! 

Finding that matters were taking this new turn, Crawford wrote Forsyth from Woodlawn, 
30 April, 1830, "I recollect distinctly what passed in the cabinet meeting referred to in }'our 

" letter to Mr. . Mr. Calhoun's proposition in the cabinet was that General Jackson 

" should be PUNISHED IN SOME FORM, OR REPRIMANDED IN SOME FORM. I 
"AM NOT POSITIVELY CERTAIN WHICH. AS MR. CALHOUN DID NOT 
" PROPOSE TO ARREST GENERAL JACKSON, I feel confident that I could not have 
" made use of that word in my relation to you," &c. Here's a disclaimer for you ! He had told 
Forsyth secretly that Calhoun did propose to arrest Jackson. Now he tells him he did not sav 
that. In one sentence of the above quoted letter, he says he recollects distinctly what passed, 
but in the next he says he does not recollect distinctly whether Calhoun spoke of reprimand 
or of punishment ! 



108 Calhoun's retort, crawford on political secrets. 

the most hostile to hira in the matter of that same Florida campaign. Jackson 
was perfectly aware that Van Buren, with the presses under his control, and 
also some of his friends in the U. S. Senate, had really been his deadliest enemies 
in 1818, and long after it — yei, now that it suited his purpose, he could profess 
to forget all this, while Calhoun, who had acted most honorably toward him, 
was made to feel the effect of what assuredly was a rooted hatred. 



Jackson, urged on by Van Bui-en's creatures, goes to a man for facts, who is filled with envy 
and hatred of Calhoun ; and who cannot withhold the details of his o^ii petty griefs, even in 
an appeal to the public. Calhoun (says he) established the Washington ilepublican to 
slander and vilily me — he set on Ninian Edwards to break down my character, &.c. He goes 
on to say, that he was for Jackson as president if it wouldn't help Calhoim, and that Calhoim's 
family had called Jackson a " military chieftain,"' with more of such gossip and twaddle ; 
adding what had probably the greatest weight of any, " I know personally that Mr. Calhoun 
favored Mr. Adams's pretensions till Mr. Clay declared for him." In his letter to Balch, 14th 
Dec. 1827, Crawford also says, " My opinions upon the next presidential election are gene- 
rally known. When Mr. Van Biu-en and Mr. Cambreleng made me a visit last April, I 
authorized them upon every proper occasion to make those opinions known." On tiuning to 
page 200, letter 1-14, it will be seen that " my friend Col. Hayne" is the word with Van 
Biu-en. In 1832, we meet with the Colonel's vote to recall him from London. When the Van 
Buren part}' nominated Jackson, in this stale, in 1828, they omitted to name Calliomi for vice 
pi'esident — meantime the plot was ripening, and a very deep plot it was. How like to the 
persecution of Clinton in 1819 and 1820, by Van Buren, Butler and the "high minded;" a 
persecution, the principle involved in which, even Hammond could not see; for Clinton's 
measm-es, like those of Jackson's insulted secretaries, had given entire satisfaction. 

Calhomr's letter to Jackson, dated May 29, 1830, is a specimen of his manly straight-for- 
wardness, and consistency, which one would wish to see rewarded, even on earth. He goes 
fully into the merits of the Seminole case — is master of both facts and arguments — and alter 
having stated that he approved, that they all approved, of Monroe's private letter of July 19, 
1818, I cannot perceive how, at an interval of twelve years, Jackson should have singled out 
him — the man to whom, when aspersed and slandered from Maine fo Missouri, he owed so 
much — as an enemy — mrless it was, that he (Calhoun) stood in the way of measures, public 
or personal, whichJackson and Van Buren had at heart; and must be injured, if that were 
possible. Calhoun's idea appears from his letters. He says to Jackson, " I should be blind not 
to see that this whole afi'air is a political manoeuvre, in which the design is that you should 
be the instrument and myself the victim, but in ^^■hich the real actors arc carefully concealed 
by an artful movement." In the hands of Clinton, Duane, Calhoun, and men of their honor- 
able dispositions, Jackson's administration might have become a blessing to society, and Van 
Buren been compelled to suspend his innigues. Soon after the dissolution, al a public dinner 
in Pendleton, S. C, one of the toasts was " Martin Van Buren. ' Ah ! tliat deceit should steal 
Kuch gentle shapes, and with a virtuous visor, hide deep vices.' " 

Calhoim never could find out the name of Jackson's fii'st informer — he avIio referred to 
Hamilton, who in his turn referred to Crawford. He was justified in holding Forsyth up in 
that detestable character, and did so — hut Van Buren remembered tlie service done him, and in 
course of time Forsyth became his Secretaiy of State. This was his reward. 

Because I gave to the public the secret correspondence of Van Buren and his confederates, 
instead of turning it into money, as some poor men like me would liave been tempted to do, 
Van Bm-en's friends have slandered and persecuted me. In a letter from his favorite candi- 
date, W. H. Crawford, dated Woodlawn, 2d Oct., 1830, and addressed to J. C. Calhoun, I find 
the following paragraph on political secrets : 

" I sliall first notice your observations upon the disclosure of tlio secrets of the cabinet, wliicli yoii say is tlic 
first wliicli lias occurred, at least in tins' country. Do you really believe this assi'ition, Mr. Ctilliouii 1 How did 
the wriiten ojiinioiis oi' Mcssrsf. JelTer.-on and Hamilton, on the lirst bntik bill, ever s^er, the r!;;lit 7 How were the 
facts and rircuinstancpn which preceded and accornpauied the removal of Edmond Randolph from (he State iJe- 
parinicnt by General WaFhinfjtoii, disclosed and made known to the public 1 If your assertion be true, those 
facts ;md circumstances would, at iliis moment, he buried in Egyptian darkness. Wliile a cabinet is in existence 
and its usefulness liable ii> bn impaired, reason and common sense point out the propriety of kccp'ng its proceed- 
incs secret. But after the caoinet no longer e.Tists, when it:3 iiscfulnes.s caiuiot be inipaircd by u disclosure of its 
proccediniis, neither reason, common sense, nor pntriotism, requires that these jiroceedings -should be sbroudi-d in 
impenetrHble darkness. The acts of such a cabinet become history, and the nation has the same right to a know- 
ledge of them, that it has to any other historical fact. Jt is presumed that all nations have entertained tljis opi- 
nion and havijucticl upon it. Hence the secret history of cabinets, the most despotic in Europe. Hcncr the history 
of the house of Stuart, by Charles James Fo.t, which discloses the most >ecret intercourse between Charles 
H., and the French Minister, by which it w;is proved tiiat ( harles was a pensioner of Louis XIV., King of 
France, and hud secretly engaged to re-establish I'opery in England. Yet in the lace of all these facts, you dare 
presume upon iIk; ignurance of the dislinguislicd person you were addressing, so far as to insinuate that such 
disclosurcB had never been made in any country, but certainly not in this republic," 



THE WIDOW TIMBERLAKE, OR A WOMAN IN THE PLOT. 109 

The Seminole question was but the nominal one, on which they differed — a 
means taken to effect a much desired end. 

Another cause of strife was Mrs. Eaton. She had been the widow of Purser 
Timberlake, of the Constitution ; and was married to Mr. J. H. Eaton, Jack- 
son's biographer and war secretary, in 1S29. While Mrs. Timberlake, the 
ladies of character, in Washington, had refused to associate with her for several 
years, alleging that her conduct and reputation were too bad. General Robert 
Desha had warned Eaton of all this before their marriage — and, as Eaton was a 
favorite of Jackson's, and the families of Messrs. Calhoun, Branch, Berrien and 
Ingham neither visited his wife nor invited her to their parties, while Van Bu- 
ren, being a widower, with no daughters, Avas unremitting in his attentions to 
her, an effort was made to coerce Messrs. Branch, Ingham and Berrien into 
a different course, coupled with a threat of removal from office, in case Mrs. E. 
was not, by their families, placed on a more friendly footing.* In all this, the 

* Wn.\T iN-FLUE-vcE DID Mr. axd Mrs. Eaton exercfse OVER Jackson 1 I place much con- 
fidence in the statements of Messrs. Branch, Berrien, and In2;ham, because thev were democrats 
of high character, the choice of Jackson, in accordance witli public sentiment, and because they 
chose, like Diiane, to retu'e from the offices they held, and refuse other offices offered them as 
bribe.?, rather than become the base instruments of Van Buren, and tlu-ough his influence to 
enjoy a monopoly, as it were, of the power and patronage of this gi-eat republic. I place con- 
fidence in them i)ecause, like Calhoun, they M"ould descend to nothing mean — because thev 
spurned Jackson's offer, for such it was, on condition that their families would associate with 
Mrs. Eaton, the v/ife of Jackson's personal friend and war minister, a woman whom the citi- 
zens' wives would neither receive nor visit, on account of her mode of lite as they had witnessed 
it ; and I confide in them, because they were acknowledged to have been good and faithful 
stewards to the public, by Jackson, while not a whi.sper did even the breath of' slander utter to 
their prejudice. I wish we could say as much of thefr well known .succe.s.sors, Kendall Tanev 
Woodbury, Van Buren and Butler. 

John Hem-\' Eaton married the Widow Timberlake in Januar}-, 1829. I suppose he had 
been a long time a widower. Either General Macomb or John Van Buren introduced me 
that year, in the department of state, to Mr. Eaton's .sons, one at least of whom must have been 
19 or 20 years old. William B. Lewis, of Tennessee, whom Polk dismissed li-om office a few 
months since, another personal friend of Jackson's, was Eaton's brother-in-law, and appears to 
have approved of this second marriage. When the cabinet broke up, Eaton wrote a letter to 
Blair, stating that soon after their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Calhoun called and left their card, 
and that he and Mrs. Eaton returned the visit, and were, by Mrs. C, recei\red with much po- 
liteness. To this, a reply was made by Calhoun, that his wife had never called on Mrs. E. at 
any time, never left her card, nor authorized another to do so for her — that Mrs. C. conceived 
it to be the duty of Mrs. E., if innocent, to open her intercourse with the ladies M"ho resided in 
the place — that '■ it was not, in fact, a question of the exclusitm of one alread}' admitted into 
societ}', bttt the admission of one already excluded. Before the marriage, while she was Mrs. 
Timberlake, she had not been admitted into the society of Washington ; and tlie real question 
was, whether her marriage -with Major Eaton should open the door alread}"- closed on her • or 
in other words, whether otficial rank and patronage should, or should not, prove paramount to 
that censorship, which the sex exerci-ses over itself; and on which, all must acknowledge the 
purit)- and dignitv of the female character mainly depend." 

I have recently perused with as mitch attention as I coitld give to them, the correspondence and 
other newspaper statements concerning Jackson, his secretaries, and Mrs. Eaton and Van Bu- 
ren. They are full of gall and bitterness. The Secretary of War (Eaton) jnibliely addresses his late 
colleagues, the great exemplars of the new world, thus : " Tliese two iiien, Ing-ham and Berrien 
will stand together in alter time, and Avith honorable men, monuments of duplicity, ingratitude 
and baseness — traitors to their friends, and destroyers of themselves — a memorable illustration 
of the ■ melancholy truth, that a man may smile and smile, and be a villain!" Betwixt his 
angry wife and artful monitor, Van Buren, poor Eaton mu.st have been in a bad A\'aA'. To re- 
peat the charges of deceit, falsehood, hypocrisy, and other vices — the threats of assassination, 
vengeance, chastisement, &;c. — the challenges to fight duels or bear the brand of cowardice' 
would be tedious — but a few extracts from the nan-ative of Governor Branch of North Carolina' 
who had been Jackson's Secretar}' of the Navy, may help us to a right estimate of Van Bu- 
ren's agency in the affair. 

" Mr. Van Buren, it must be home in inind, [says Gov. Branch.] was n. widower without daughters ; and he 
adroitly availed himself of all his privileges as such. His attentions to Mrs. Eaton were of the most marked 
character. Polite and assiduous on all occasions, he was particularly .*o in tiie presence of Gen. Jackson or 



110 



A FOX CHASE, BY BRANCH, WEBB, AND SPEIGHT. 



point aimed at, both by Van Buren and Jackson, was to get rid of Calhoun's 
friends, and to fill their places with more pliable politicians. On the 7ih of 
April, ]b31, Eaton resigned the War Department. Van Ijuren gave up the 
Department of Slate on the 11th, and Jackson wrote him after this manner : — 
" "I'o say that I deeply regret to lose you is but feebly to express my feelings." 
Ingham was sent for next — the two resignations shown him by the President, 
and a wish expr.^ssed that he would go out. The Russian Mission was otfer- 
ed as usual, which he indignantly refused, but re.signed forthwith, giving, as his 

Maj. Eaton. His influence, in ever>' variety (if form, both official and unofficial, was exerted to malte it appa- 
rent to tliose L'enlli men tliiit he entered deeply into their feelings; not, in lUct, thit ho c.ired Hiiyihing ntidtit 
them; but lie Ibresaw the power to be acquired by pursuing; such a course, and hail no scruples toresinjin him. 
At length, Gen. Jackson, after the meeting ol Congress in December, 18iH, finding the Indies of VVnfhinglon to 
be impracticable, determined that the families of his Cabinet should submit to terms or be disniissed. * « * 
Congress was in session ; the ladies of the members from Tennessee, even, held no iiittrcourse with Mrs. Ea- 
lon; nor, in lact. llie President's own family. Tlie friends of the administration became alarmed, lest the ex- 
ercise of suchilespdiic power should overwlielm them all, and warded otl" the impending blow, 'i'be situation 
of Mrs. E;iton, h.i\sever, engros ed the ('resident's whole sinil, and he continued to be much occupied in col 
lecting cerllliciites, principally from olfice seekers, to sustain her. This book of cerliticates. lur a folio did it 
soon become, was that on which olfice seekers fir.-<t qualilied tor utfice. In the meantime. Mr. Van Buren, who 
hud nj-lfnlly umtributeii to inflame the Presidenl's mind, doubtless, in part, inducing lum U) believe that Mrs. 
Calhoun's relusal to return Mrs. Eaton's card in February, IcftJO, had Influenced ibe families of the Cabinet to 
pursue the course they hail adopted towards her. lindii.g b.im wrought up to the mad fury of a ' rOaring lion," 
to use Col. Johnson's description, ihoujrht it a good time to uncage and turn him loose on his most (iirmiilable 
rival, Mr. Calhoun, who was then Vice President, i'nd participated with him in the renown which he (Van 
6lireu) atlncliL-d to service Under such a thief. The manner in which the unlrieiidly lorre-poiulence ciin>- 
liienced between Gen. Jackson and Mr. Calliouii, t-ikeii ill connection wiUi the time, is sufficient to con\ini-e 
any intelligent mind that it was in-tignied lo Van Buren. 1 exi-r ed everj nerve lo defeat his puii><is«. UfUii 
have 1 entreated Oineral Jackson to avmd a rupture witli Mr. Cdhoun. as no gnoil touid result irnni sUch a 
quarrel. His allegntiini against .Mr. Ciilh..un Was a nure pretext ; yon see him now in sweet communion with 
those who, in ltl9. were his mo-t biiier assailants. By ibis time, 1 well iinder-tcud the eh ir.icter id Mr. Van 
Bnreu, With h,m, I found ihat the end justified the means i f.i,d. a- the ileMruition if Mr. Calln Uii was the 
object nearet Ins Leart. he vmis voiy willing the old Chief, for whom he pmfe-std -n miicli li.veai.il vei.er'tum, 
shouUl accomplish ibis work for him at any ai.d every h"Z:iril to hiiu-ell. 1 believed then ihiil Mr. Van Buren 
jifaceU toi) liiw an estimate on ihe vinue, jMlriotisiii and intelligence ol the Americ.ni people, ai il ihal bis reli- 
ance on Ceneral J.iikson to aicmnplish his purpn-es WuuUl prove delusiva. ♦ * * His .-kirts have proved 
strong enough to liear Mr. Viin Buren into the Vice Tresidencj, ai.d recent indications have induced me lo 
fear that tlie ciuntrj Is suffii:ieiiiiy corrupt lo enable him. through llie p,itn)iiage of Uie d vernmenl, to reach 
the great olijeul 111 lis aminlion. It does >ur))iss all beliel that the coul, dl<pas>ion iie ai:d U, pr.ijciplen wire- 
Wi>rl»<;r in ibis plot .-Ikould, by sBch uieaus, render hiui.>elfaccep. able to a tree, generou.i, p.ilrii.t.c, and e..l.gUt- 
eoed people." 

Oue tiling must be siid here, In favor of Jackson, but it tells so much the woi-se for Van 
Buren. His ptrty \xLd basely shimiered Jviis. jjickson during the canvass of lS-24 ; JLckson 
was tenderly attiiclied to hjr ; she had gone to her gruve, just bcior-i he Idt Tennessee lo tssume 
tlie duties of President ; and there were those who wounded his ll-elings by telling him ihut Uie 
conduct pui-sued towards his Tennes.-ee friend's wiie, wls one way ol insulting iiansLlf. Jack- 
son had not forgotten the Benton pamphlets. On the 9th oi M^y, IfcSl, Jtst.t Lpeigl.t, M. C, 
•vrlio afterwards idiiered to Van tiuren, thus addrcs-sed Governor Lri.i.ch : 

■ .-Ta.nti NBfP.R. May 9. 1P31. 

" .Mt dear friend : — Yours of the 4th Inst., has this moment come tihand. I am i.i.tinisi Ken n the opinion 
1 had formed a.i to the c.ai-e nf the hlow out at Washington tas we call it here.) It is impossib.e tor uie to ex- 
press the deep and hearilelt mnrt.flcalion 1 have and continue to leel lor the honor of uiy ci.untry. I too, sir, 
Hm disjippoiiited Never did 1 believe that the high-minded chiv.-Hln.us Independence ol Ai-drew J,ick>on ci uld 
be made to bnw at the shrine of stlfi^h ambition. Ah ! and so a- to lorsike old bmc tried Iiiends at the polls, 
nnd moved liv the deceitful i.rtifici s ofstnh men as Martin Van Buren, and seduced by the in>iipation ol Mrs. 
Baton. Sol'.rra.s I have understood, the feehngs of your tVienits are with you. * ♦ » Q,,d bless you. 

'•J. Bi LIOHT." 

Col. James Watson Webb was, as the reader will perceive by reference to his letter and card, 
pages 231 and 2:^:2, so friendly to Van Buren, tliat he was ready to fight any number of duels to 
Lis honor and giorv. Having since, like me, cooled do^\'n a little, he tells iiis rei.dcrs, through 
the Courier & iiiiquirer of July 7, 1837, that Van Buren became Jackson's favorite '• by his 
base sycophancy and unscrupulous truckling lo the mandates of his mastci'' — that, to worm him- 
self into Jack-soa's favor, lie gave a grand entertainment, to which all tlie families ol distinction 
were invited — that " at the appointed time, the doors of the supper-room were thrown open, the 
music struclc up, and Maniii Van Buren led to the head of his table, and seated upon Ids right 
hand, the latly whom General Jackson had conuuanded lo be received," but Mhoni tlie rest of 
the cabinet objected lo countenance. 

A.^ early as Xov. 2-1, 1S28, the ^'ational Advocate, N. Y., notices the singular fact, lliat " im- 
raediately rd'ter the combined powers have etleclcd the .security of Jaek>ons election, the forces 
of Van Buren and Calhoun .should assume a Ito.slile anitude towards each oilier." ^'an Buren 
and his Ibllowfus, well knowing Jack.son's pledge not to be re-elected, were the first lo nominate 
hiin {or a second term— thev saw lie wished it and that it would throw him more and more 
into Van Buivn's power. How few Kings, Popes, and Presidents Me fmd who M-ilUngly lay 



JACKSON — TYLER— VAN BUREn's REJECTION, 1832, 111 

reason, Jackson's wishes that he should do so. Jackson replied to his note, bore 
testimony to his " integrity and zeal," and declared that he had been "fully sa- 
lisfied" with his conduct. This was not the truth. If the ofiicer was true and 
faithful, did he merit, as a I'eward, to be turned rudely out of place, or what 
was thereto equivalent .-' If he had said to the three cabinet nii.nisters, whom 
he asked to go away, " You are taithful, capable and zealous in the public ser- 
vice, but you are also fond of Calhoun, whom Van Buren has made me believe 
not to be my friend ; this is your oflence, and it is unpardonable ;" he would 
have told more of the truth in that matter. How could he deeply regret to 
part with Van Buren as an officer, when he had already resolved to send him 
to London, and give McLane Ingham's place"? Congress broke up on the 3d 
of March, and by the 7th of next month, the actors in the cabinet plot had their 
parts perfectly prepared. 

That same year, Louis McLane took charge of the Treasury, and Van Buren 
left for England as the new envoy. His letter to Hoyt, page 229, shows that 
he liked the British capital, all but the expense of living in it. His nomina- 
tion as minister was sent to the Senate in December ; and, on the 25th of Jan- 
uary, 1832, by a vote of 23 against 23, and the casting voice of *Calhoun, 

down power ! I think John Tvler was honest and meant to do right, and I am glad he did not 
give us a national bank, for I think we may do better — but he ought lo have declined a re-elec- 
tion, and positively declared that he would not be a candidate. Why did he ad\"ocate the one 
term principle, and afterwai'ds, like Jackson, decline to lay down the cup till he had drank to 
the very dregs ? I am not sure that his conduct in asking his cabinet officers, whether he 
ought to be a candidate for a second term, was the surest e\idence of a great soul or a lofty 
spirit. He must have known, when he asked his cabinet, What shall I do 1 that the answer 
would be. Hold the reins as long as possible. One good to him result^^d trom the course he 
took. He learnt what a hollow, deceitful tribe, courtiers are. There are, in reality, but two 
parties in this republic ; and it would have been glorious, indeed, if the people had shaken olT 
tha harness of demagogues, and constituted a party for the countr}' and for libert}-. I once 
thought that it was Mr. Tyler's ambition to rise upon the ruins of prostrate selfishness. Per- 
haps I was mistaken. When he left Washington, his successor seemed wanting in respect to 
the office he had held. No matter. It taught him a lesson. I honor him lor signing the cheap 
postage bill, malgie all southern opposition. 

* Whv was Van Bl're.v rejected by the Sexate 1 When the Van Buren party at Albany 
heard of his rejeclion as minister to London, where, as Dr Holland tells ns, on the best 
authority, " he arrived in Sept-?mb:r, 1831, and was received, with distinguishea favor, bv 
the Court of St. James," the legislators friendly to him met atA.bany, in the Assembly Cham- 
b.u-, where Senator Kemble, whose subsequent adventurci; wiil b3 found in mr Livens" of Hoyt 
and Butler, came forward with a scries of resolutions for a national convention at Baltimore, 
a stat3 convention at Alban}-, &c., and the meeting also appointed Levi Beardsley, John W. 
Ednunds, N. P. Talmadge, C. L. Livingston, W. H. Angel, and others, a connnittee to 
address General Jackson ; v.'iio, in his reply, took occasion to say to them that Van Buren, on 
the question of trade, respecting which he had been blamed, had acted under his directions, 
and that his conduct had his approbation — that he held him in high esteem as a man of 
ability and int:^grity — that, as far as he (Jackson) knew, he had taken no part in the difficul- 
ties between him (Jackson) and Calhoun, nor advised the dusolutiou of his first cabinet, but 
been the friend of harmony — and that, when asked to go to London, he "yielde.1 a reluctant 
con.sent." 

In t'enate, Mr. Webster thought Van Buren's instructions to McLane, of 29th of July, 182y, 
derogatory lo the national character, and.showed a disposition in the writer to persuade Lord 
Aberdeen that the English government had an interest in maintaining in the U. S. the ascend- 
ency of the party to which he (V. B.) belonged ; thus establishing abroad a distinction between 
his country and his party. Mr. Frclinghuysen took a similar view. Van Buren's instruc- 
tions commissioned McLane to apprise the British Coiut of who triumphed last election, and 
who were defeated — to put his party in the right and his country in the wrong — to seek as a 
favor, as a privilege to the party "now dominant, Avhat had been refused as a right in Mr 
Adams' time — and to separate the administration of ihe country Irom the country, for, said 
be, Mr. Van Buren argues that " to set up the acts of the i.ate administratio.v, as the cause 
of the FORFEITURE OF puiviLEGEs which would othcrvrise be extended to the people of the U. S., 
would be unjust," because we, the new men in office, took sides with England, and opposed 
that administration. This is very humiliating indeed. 

On the matter of colonial trade, Adams and Clay, when in power, had agitated in every 



112 VAN BURENj THE TARIFF, AND PROSCRIPTION IN POLITICS. 

" ISew York's favorite son" was permilted to exchange the classic banks of the 
Thames, and the smiles of royally in tiie old world, for iiis rural residence at 

possible way the question of tl;e free navigation of the great St. Lawrence. They asserted that 
iingland, bj- her colonial trade act, wanted to nionopoiize the whole carrying trade lor Ame- 
rican produce, which is very bulk}', to the Biiti.sli '\Ve.'>t Indies, and reasoned with her on the 
unfairness of high discrinunating or protecting duties. Jackson and Van Buren abandoned 
the free use of the St. Lav/rencc and ilie carrying trade, and obtained a reduction of duties on 
articles sent tlu-ough Canada — they declaring that if the farmer found a new or ii.iprovcd 
market at his own door, it mattered little to him where his produce went to. 1 must own that 
Van Buren's conduct in this trade question does not appear to me to be deserving of censure 
'ill ttsclj- — and as the instructions were by the Presiuent, and had been belbre Congress foi 
many months — as the terms agreed to by Lord Aberdeen and Louis McLane, in 16'z'J, 1 think, 
had been accepted b_v this country, and the trade opened umiei- a legislative enactment, it 
seems to me that it was too late to censure, in Ib32, language which had been passed over 
without remark lb months before. The cringing, apologetic tone of the instructions tells who 
the real author was; and contrasts strangely witn the bold and haughty dehance given to an- 
cient, tricndly, warm-hearted France, on another memorable occasion, Ifom the same quarter 
— batl do 11) ink the arrangement made was advan.ageous to the U. S. Soon after this, I 
moved in the Canada Assembly for the appointment of a Committee on Trade : and, alter 
some six weeks of inquiries, 1 drew up the report, which the legislature printed in the lorm of 
a pamphlet of a hundred pages. Here is an extract : " Lnglana e.aims an exclusive monopoly 
in our markets; she allows us none in hers. Oiu' beef and pork are prohibited in her home 
dominions, and our pot and pearl-ashes subjected to the same rates of fluty at Liverpool as the 
pot and peuii-ashes of the southern shores of Ontario and Erie. The shipping of Britain at 
Uuebec give no preference to tiinber, live stocK, Hour, beel, ..nd pork, brougnt from Upper 
Canada, over similar articles brought Irom the United btates. TliC monopoly is all in lavor 
of England and the United States, the Congress of which latter country, by an act passed in 
July, 1832, subjects our wheat, wiieat lloiu-, beef and pork, ashes, and other staples, to an im- 
post lax of £15 on every £100 value." In all this there was not much of reciprocity — but I 
do not see how complaint could be made at Washington of an arrangement wnich excluded 
Canada from the ports of the United States, and opened those of Canada and the West Indies 
to the farmers oi this Union. In everi conversation I had, when in England, with Lord 
Goderich, who introduced the corn bill into parliament, and with Lord Sydenliam, V. P. of the 
Board of Trailc, in lb33-33, 1 complained grievously of the liberality .shown to the U. S. lor 
the benefit of EnglLsh shipping, while no care had been taken to obtain the like favors for 
Canada here. The late drawback act is an amendment, however, and there are many im- 
pro\x'ments on both sides — but i have proposed to myself to avoid saying much on tariff ques- 
tions. There is not room here. 

A charge made against Van Buren, that he was the parent of the proscriptivc system, which 
Clay and Adams had disdained to resort to, would have been ably sustained, had the Senators 
who made it had, in addition to the facts in their possession, the Custom House rubbish left on 
deposit, or to be .swept out, when Jesse Hoyt ceased to be first lord of the Van Buren treasuiy 
here. Senator Fo'Jl, of Connecticut, said, "I sincerely believe that Gen. Jackson came to this 
place fully determined to remove no man from office, but for good cause of removal. 1 am 
fully convinced the whole ' ^y^tcnt of ■pruscnpl.tuii' owes its existence to Martin Van Buren ! 
That the dissolution of the Cabinet \vas eflected by his management and lor his benefit ! and 
that the handof tlie late Secretary of Stale maybe traced distinctly in another afl'air, which has 
produced an alienation between the first and .second Officers of the Government ; and ako in 
relation to the present ' improved condition of the public press,' and the great abuse of the 
patronage of the Government!" 

On 'luesday, Jan. 31, I'ammany Hall met to sustain Van Buren, and the committee of 
resolves consisted of W. Bowne, James Campbell [see pages 1113, '2U3, ^Vc.J, Saul AUej', C. 
W. Lawrence, W. P. Hallett, Preserved Fisli, Wm. M. Price, F. B. Cutting [.see pages 177, 
180, 182], Gideon Lee, Llisha TibbetLs, &c. They glorified Jackson and Van buren, censured 
the Senate as intriguers, and read John C. Calhoun out of the democratic party by due process 
of political excommunication. 

.Vinong the 23 rejecting votes in the Senate, I notice Holmes of Maine, Clay, Webster, Sey- 
mour of Vt., iVeliiigluiy.sen, Clayton, R. Y. Hayne, Gabriel Moore, I'homas Ewing, and B. 
Ruggles. j^iuong the 23 affirming votes were Isaac Hill, Felix Grundy, Dudlc}' and Marey, 
G. M. Dallas and W. Wilkin.s, his brother-in-law, Benton, Tyler, Powiiattan Ellis, and King, 
now at Paris. 1 have seen a table showing tiial Ihe States voting in favor of Van Buren had 
a puj)ulatioii of (i,(JJj,57I, and those opjiosi-d only 3,500,000, yet ilie majority was one against. 
iSullilieatioii came next, then the pet hanks, the sub-treasury Ibllowed. On New Year's day, 
IHIU, Clay and Calhoun attended I'rcsidcni Van Buren's levee ; and in November next, SoUiii 
Carolina, with consent of Calhoun, McDutiie, Pickens and Riieti, honored with her vote, for a 
second term, the rejected minister of 1832. 



VAN BUREN AS VICE PRESIDENT. HIS CAREER* 113 

Kinderhook, in the lovely valley of the Hudson, near the base of the Catskill ; 
and relieved, for a brief season, from the cares of public life. He left England 
for France in March, made a hasty tour over the continent, and embarked, on 
the lOih of May, at Havre, for New York. 

Early in 1833, he came ao;ain into possession of power as Vice President of 
the Unioo ; as President of the Senate, which had refused to place confidence in 
him a twelvemonth before ; and as the successor of Calhoun, whose casting 
voice had ensured his rejection. Had Van Buren been a truly great and good 
man, his triumphs would have been a pleasant theme for the historian to dwell 
upon ; but, as they were obtained, like Butler's, by deceit and hypocrisy, by 
seeming to be the man he was not, and by the "judicious puffs" of artful fol- 
lowers, interested in his fortunes by personal ties, they are a source of regret. 
Blair's press, a donation from Van Buren's financial confederates in New York, 
did him good service — as did the trusty types of his ancient advocate, the editor 
of the Argus. Jealousies, bickerings, and some lack of tact among his oppo- 
nents, the cry of persecution, and the fact, well known to "waiters on Provi- 
dence," that Jackson's popularity was at his back, did the rest. That the agi- 
tation of the colonial trade question at the time of his rejection, and the speeches 
of General Samuel Smith on that home topic, did him no injury, 1 am well per- 
suaded. He took his seat at the head of the Senate, for the first time, on thf 
16th of December, 1833. 



CHAPTER XXV 



" Gold, still gold — it flew like dust ! it tipp'd the post-boy, and paid the trust ; 
In each open palm it was freely tlirust ; there was nothing but giving and taking ! 
And if gold could insure the future hour, what hopes attended that Bride to her bower ; 
But alas ! even hearts with a four-horse power of opulence, end in breaking." t 

Removal of the Deposits in 1833. — Bank of the Metropolis. — Root^ Jackson^ aid 
Van Buren, on the Pets. — iV. Riddle, — Ingersoll on Charters and Slavery.— 
Col. Duane. — W. J. Daane. — Polk and Lawrence. — Kendall in Kentucky. — 
His treatment of II. Clay. — Kendall and the Bank, Tariff, Mackenzie, 6^-c. — 
Duane opposes the Pet Bank Conspiracy. — His reasons. — Louis J\IcLar,e''s 
views. — Sila» Wright and the Bank. — Calhoun'' s Prophetic Address in 1834. 
— La7ul Speculations. — The Globe. — Jackson, Duane, and the Mission to Si- 
beria. — Chief .Iiistice Taney. — Wonderful effects of Flattery. — Bennett upon 
Kendall. 

I HAVE shown, that, in 1824, Van Buren, his presses, and his partisans, were 
among the most thoroughgoing advocates of the United States Bank, and of the 
Presidential candidate who had been its most consistent, zealous, and uniform 
advocate — that, in 1826, Van Buren, Marcy, and Butler, admitted that it had a 
right to establish branches in the states, and that they petitioned Nicholas Bid- 
die and his brother directors for a branch at Albany — that Van Buren was 
friendly to Adams and Clay's administration in the first instance, and that the 
presses in his interest had abused Jackson in harsher terms than even Ritchie 
used — that he was connected with the most corrupt and infamous banks and 
bankers in the State of New York, the opponent of inquiry into their miscon- 
duct, and the advocate of new charters without check or responsibility — that 
the Albany Argus was his official organ — and that when the swindling establish- 
ments of previous years had pillaged the people of millions, and no two-thirds 
majority could be found to recharter the Mechanics and Farmers', and other 



114 VAN BUREN, WRIGHT, AND THE BANKRUPT PETS. 

favorite banks of his, in 1826, '27, and '28, he put forward his Safety Fund 
nostrum, apd went for banks by the score, in January, 1829. I have also 
shown what that fund was and how it operated. 

The authentic secret correspondence, which providence has thrown in my 
way, will help the historian not a httle in his efforts to discover the motives 
which influenced Van Buren* and his confederates to tamper with the currency, 
as they did, from 1829 to 1841. The letters of C. W. Lawrence, C. C. Cam- 
breleng, S. Wright, B. F. Butler, R. H. Nevins, John Van Buren, Joseph Ker- 
nochan, W. L. Marcy, E. and C. L. Livingston, F. B. Cutting, S. Swartwout, 
E. Croswell, A. C. Flagg, Thad. Phelps, Stephen Allen, and T. VV. Olcott, 
when compared with certain facts and circumstances previously made public, 
too clearly prove that the war against the U. S. Bank, the detestable scheme 
of the pet banks, with the bribery, fraud, bankruptcy, and other accumulated 
miseries inflicted on the public through the derangement of business, had their 
origin at Albany. Jackson, though cunning himself, was but the ready instru- 
ment of still more artful men. Lady Hester Stanhope tells, that when Pitt was 
premier, large sums, hundreds of thousands of pounds, were offered to him in 
presents, by men deeply engaged in commerce, speculation, banking, &c., 
doubtless with the hope that he would favor their interests. In the absence of 
proof to the contrary, we may venture to assume that bucktail virtue, like 
English pride, would have spurned all such Potosian temptations. 

The United- States Bank had paid $1,500,000 for the use of the public 
money, during the continuance of its charter ;■{■ the Supreme Court of the Union 

* In Van Buren's message to Congress, Dee. 5, 1840, he says : 

" When I entered upon the discharjie of my official duties in March, 1837, the act for the distribution of the 
SHtpliis revenue was in a course of rapid execution. Nearly twenty-ei^lii millions of dollars of the public 
moneys were, in pnrsimnce <if its provisions, deposited with the States in the nlonlhs of Jaiurtry, April, and 
July, I f iha" year. QCT" In May there occurred a pener.-il suspension of specie payiheiits hy the tiank-!, includiiig, 
BCr "''th very lew exteptons, those in whith ihe puhlic moneys were di'po iied, and upon whrse fidelity t.'ia Gov- 
{t5°einineiuhad unl'oriuniitely niMrie itself dependeni for the. re venues which had beim collected from ihe people, 
ard were indispensable to the public service. This sii-pension, and the excesses in l)ankinp and commerce out 
if which it aro-;e, and which were preally aggravated by its occurrence, made, to a great extent, nnavailable 
ihe principal part of the public money then on hand; suspended the ct)llection of many millions accruing on 
Iterchanis' bonds; and "jreatly reduced the revenue arising from customs and the public lands." 

''The Treasury has it in its power to exert a saliitiry influence, first over the deposit banks, which will al- 
ways lie selected from the principal Rinks In Ihe stales, and ihrouuh them, over the residue. What'ver check 
w.\s exercised by the United h^taies Bank on the issues of the state banks, was done either by refusing to take 
their notes In deposit, or if taken, by returning them quickly for specie, if it believed their issues to be exces- 
sive. The depiisit banks have a right to do the same ihiiig, and are in the habit of exercising it, when, in 
their opinions, iin occ ;sion for its exercise exists. Over the deposit banks themselves, the Secietiry of the 
'Jre:isnr>' his lilieral supervisory powers. He in«y in his discretion direct, as liefore remarked, an increase of 
th' Ir specie, when it appear* by the returns which they are oliliged to iii^ike to him at short interx als, that their 
Ji-siie> are large and riisproi'.ortiiiniite to their specie on hand ; and a ronsUint and great check is exercised over 
them by the acln-d pulil'c knowledce of their condition obtained through their reports, and the regular publi- 
cation otthein."— riin Buren's JMter to S/ierrod IVUUams. ^flugu-tlS, 183G. 

In his message of 1333. Jackson told Congress, that " the -^tate Banks selected are all Institutions of high 
chHracteraiid iindonbied strength, and are under the mmigement and contra! »/ rrfn of uvgucslional probity 
and iKtclligcnce." In his uiessage of 1837, h- said that "a nuniljer of the Deposit Banks have, with a com- 
mendable zeal to iiiil in the improvement of the currency, imported from abroad at their own expense, large 
smii's nf the precious mi'tals for coinage and circulation." The explosion and Innkruptcy of l.-^'J? followed, 
and Wrielit &. <'o. were ready with their new nostrum, the sub treasury. Hitchie, of ilie Uiiicm, like Tall- 
madpe, kicked a Utile, being up t« the chin in speculation. Ilis press designated the honest locos who met in 
the r«rk. N. v.. " Ihe r.iblilc rout." 

In a letter to S. D. Hastings, dated Forest Ilill, i^ept. Ofi, 1840, Charles J. Inger.soll. Chairman of the Com. on 
Foreign Aliliirs, H. of U., says that "the charlered power given bv our laws to mnke jiiiper money by 
banks of disconiiu 'I OLER ATliD IN ALL THEIR VIOLA I'lONS OF EVEUV PRINCII'LE t)F RIGHT. ■!■! at 
this moment ilemoraliiini; Pennsylvania, and particularly Philadelphia, by more folly, ignorance, breach offiith 
nnd <! law, luxury, intemperance, vice, crime, and misery, than can bo ju.stly imputed to slavery anywhere. 
Sliivery, I entiiely believe with you, distempers any Commonwealth ; but the blood ot ours is fatally poisoned 
by whai renders liberty and equality hardly worth having." 

1 In Webster's report on Finance, in U. S. Senate, June 27, 1834, he states that the Bank of the Metropolis, 
VViLsliinglon, had not 3100.000 of its notes in circulaiion— that ils credit was so bad that its bills had been sold 
at a disiaiuiil near its doors — that more than 890 i,000 of the public treasure was deposited with It— and that 
lh<nc who look Its notes as payment from government, and carried them to a ilistance. suffered loss. General 
Root explains that its funds were used in land jol.bing in the west, to realize fortunes to Polk's party patriots. 
This blink a d its confederate pct» gave no securiiy to the country — they paid no bonus nor Interest — lb- y pay 
none now — ibey made immenKe suins by using the national revenue— thoy were recommended by Woodbury 
and Tuncy to lead it oat, so that the niorchitnts borrowing might be compelled to ui>bold their puity however 



THE DUANES, ROOT, AND JACKSON, ON THE BANKS. 115 

had unanimously decided that that charter was constitutional ; a committee of 
Congress, and finally the House of Representatives, had declared, after inquiry, 
that the national treasure was safe in its vaults; the high tariff of 182S, sup- 
ported by Wright and Van Buren with the view of obtaining a surplus of many 
millions of revenue for political distribution and personal aggrandizement, had 
done its work ; Jackson had been elected a second time to the Presidency ; and 
now was the time to go into "the general scramble for plunder," as Svvartwout 
calls it, in right earnest. 

The first step of the conspirators was to advise the appointment of William 
J. Duane to the office of Secretary of the Treasury. The offer was made, and 
it was accepted. Mr. Duane was the son of one of the most upright, energetic, 
zealous and consistent democrats ever known to this Union. He had sown the 
good seed of manly, truthful principles in India, England, Ireland, and America 
— had suffered persecution for the love he bore to freedom — had upheld the 
good, and been a terror to the evil doer in high station, during half a century — 
was vigilant for his country as a trusted military officer in wai" — and the foe of 
United States Banks and other monopolies at variance with his ideas of equal 
rights and laws. In Poland, he would have followed Kosciusko ; in France, 
been ready to tear down the Bastile, or participate in the glorious days of 1830. 
What he thought of last and least was the acquisition of wealth; and he died 
in old age, very poor, with a heart warmed by love and kindness toward his 
fellow-men. Cobbett, who disliked his antipathy to the English system of war, 
taxation, finance, conquests and ill treatment of Ireland, frankly acknowledged 
that Willian^ Duane was the most efficient and sleepless opponent England had 
on this coi>tinent. I have read the files of the Aurora, no matter how old, with 
real delight, for it was impossible not to see great sincerity united with true 
patriotism, and an informed and reflecting mind, in the remarks of its conductor 
who, with " Montague on Republics," believed that " There cannot be a more 
certain symptom of the approaching ruin of a state, than when a firm adherence 
to party is fixed upon as the only test of merit, and when all the qualifications, 
requisite to the discharge of every employment, are reduced to thatsin'j'le stan- 
dard." ° 

His son,* William John Duane, whom Jackson called to his cabinet, in May, 

wrons General Root, in N Y. Senile, Feb. 7, ISU, said thit "the deposit banks were ex[>ected to support 
the Government even in the IdchI elections— in short, to do all its dirty work. The customers of the^e B inks 
were required to support tho A.du.inistr;ttion, otherwiie they could'get no aceommod ition. The New York 
merchmis sell their good's to the country nierctiants on cre<lit. When the mercli mts from the country went 
to the city, they wer.- told, we cmnot give you credit unless we ctn get accoiniiiod uion ai the l>:tnk<. The 
Bitnk< will not discount to those who are opposed to the Government. The consequence w:h,s. th it the nier- 
chinls were coinpelled to support the Adiuini-itration. Thirty or forty Pet Binks Wi^ra Hpp.)inted tor the ex- 
press purpose of doing the work of the Aduiinislriition. There was no need of proof of this — it w.ts open, pil- 
pible, visilile brihery—obviom to every mm, womin and child in the country. Was there ever such an attempt 
to overwhelm the whole l.ind in a sea of corruption 7" 

Wherein did this system, which miy hive made fortunes for Polk, Butler, Van Buren, Lawrence. Cim- 
brelens, M ircy. White &, Co., its creators, differ from that in operation now, as presided over by Walker Bdii- 
crofl, Mircy and Piilk? ' 

Who was Nicholas Biddle, whom Blair, Croswell, Green, and Bennett, so systematically abused at the word 
of cimm ind from Van Buren, Polk & Co.? The favorite of Monroe, of Ad im<, of Jick^on. a democratla. con- 
pressm in. affluent before he entered the b ink, and nominated by Andrew Jackson and confirmed by the Sen- 
ate, in 1830, in 1831, and a third tune, in [P.-jiJ, as a government director of the B ink as he h id been for seven 
year< before by M «nroe and Adim>. The moment Mr. Ahib V*n Buren coveted Mr. N iboth Bidille's vineyard 
he raised such a du^t about his ears, through the collar presses, that many persons, myself among the number 
believed him to be as great a monster as his bank was said to be. ' 

* As S3cretiry, Diane gives evidance of a .soand juJgmsnt, first rate basiiiess talent, and 
great mrightiie^s. Oi his title to .sapsrior ability as a .statesman, when compared to Jaek.son, 
Polk, Van Bmen, Lawrence, Wright, Butler, Taney, Cambreleng, and the rest of the pet bank 
junto, let his conduct, and his reasons for it, be compared with the result of THE EXPERI- 
MENT, and the tardy cDnfessions of the men who made it. 

In a letter to Moses Dawson, dated in 1837, General Jackson, after saying that he had con- 
fidence ixi the honesty of state banks at the time he placed in their vaults the deposits, adds: 



116 GIRARD, SMITHSONT, LAWRENCE, POLK, AND FAVORITISM- 

1833, was a lawyer of eminence in Philadelphia, one of the executors of the 
generous French banker, Girard, who, as if to shame the intolerant native party 
of our day, left millions of dollars, to educate American children, while Smith- 
son, an Englishman, sent $500,000 across the ocean for a like generous pur- 
pose. Duane wrote Girard's will, was long his adviser, was opposed to the 
United States Bank, in 1811 and 1S16, ahvays and on principle; and, with his 
father, threw their great popularity in Pennsylvania into the Jackson scale, in 
1824, when Van Buren, Ritchie, and the selfish politicians, into whose hands 
he fell in 1S33, were slandering his name, and ridiculing his pretensions. 

Mr. Duane had repr^'sented the Philadelphia democrats in the Legislature of 
Pennsylvania, had written much that was useful, was married to a grand-daughter 
of that eminent American, Benjamin Franklin ;* and, with his father, had given 
the war of IS 12, an early, efficient, and continued support. He was opposed to 
congressional caucuses, and had no need to turn to the winning side, when 
Jackson was victorious, in 1828. For twelve years has this great and good 
man been allowed to remain in private life, traduced and slandered by the 
Globe, Argus, and kindred presses in the pay of Van Burenism, while his great 
experience, true patriotism, and sterling honesty v/ould have been of vast im- 
portance in the Congress of the Union. 

No doubt. Van Buren, Kendall, and their confederates deceived themselves 



" But v/as this confidence well founded, and whose fault is it that it was not 1 Let their 
treachery to the government and the people answer. Every day that the directors of these 
banks met at their boards, they knew their liabilities, and their assets to meet them. The)'- 
were repeatedly and earnestly cautioned by the treasury department not to over-issue — their 
charters prohibited it — their solemn obligations to the government and the people, and every 
principle of moral honesty, forbade it. Still, in open violation of all obligations, they sus- 
pended specie payments in a time of profound peace, robbed the treasury of many millions of 
dollars, and cried out, at the same time, that the treasury was bankrupt. 

" The history of the world never has recorded such base treachery and perfid}', as has been 
committed by the deposit banks against the government, and purely with the view of grati- 
fying Biddle and the Barings, and by the suspension of specie payments, embarrass, and ruin, 
if Ihei/ could, their /non counlrij, for the selfish views of making large profits by throwing out 
millions of depreciated paper upon the people — selling their specie at large premiums, and 
buying up their own paper at discounts of from 25 to 50 per cent., and now looking forward 
to be indulged in these speculations for years to comi-, before they resume specie payments." 

Cornelius W. Lawrence, the apocryphal President of perhaps the most corrupt of these 
banks, thus denounced by Jackson, is selected by Polk in 1845, as Collector of the Port of N. 
Y., and confirmed in 184G by the Senate ! His letters to Hoyt and others show that he acted 
contrary to his oath (which was, to vote according to his best judgment^, in supporting the 
.spoliation of the U. S. Bank. A two million charier was handed to hun, from Albany, in 
1836, as some pecuniary recompense lor tear and wear of conscience — some two millions of 
the plunder of the national bank were placetl in the custody of the new concern — Lawrence 
became its president, as a matter of course — and, with over iiii4,000,000 of a paid up capital 
and United States deposits, its doois were shut upon the people and iheir government, while 
the ink with which its charter had been written was yet scarcely dry. When Lawrence became 
Collector, through the friendship of President Polk, his brother .roseph slipped into office as 
bank president: and their defaultin:^ j)aper factory, though denounced by Jackson, is once 
more a pet of Polk and Walker, with the use of millions of the public treasure to its mana- 
gers, without bonus or interest ! Who can tloubt the result! Not the authorities at Wash- 
ington. 

* Sarah, daughter of Benjamin Franklin, married Richard Bache, editor of the Aurora, 
Philadelphia. Colonel William Duane, a native of the Province of N. Y., succeeded i\lr. 
Bache in the management of that popular journal, and was appointed by Madison, in 1813, a 
brigadier-general in the armies of the Union. His son, the fearless secretary of the treasury, 
married a daughter of Mr. Bache, and her mother, Mrs. Sarah Bache. died in Oct., 1808, aged 
61 years. I have long and an.xiously wi.shed that some able, well-informed friend of the 
family, who has access to the necessary materials, would compile and publisli the Life and 
Times of William Duane, To the Union, to Britain, and to Ireland, the land of his fore- 
fathers, the lessons that that work would teach would be invaluable. 



AMOS KENDALL, OR ADVENTURES IN KENTUCKY. 117 

into a belief, that Duane's known dislike to the principle on which the U. S. 
Bank was chartered, would enable them to make of him a powerful and popu- 
lar instrument, for the achievement of their grand scheme of bank plunder, al- 
ready resolved upon. But they had mistaken their man.* 

Previous to the loss of liberty in Greece, as Thucydides tells us, " while 
each party endeavored, by every possible method, to get the better of its anta- 
gonist, the most flagrant acts of injustice were perpetrated on both sides. Mo- 

* Amos Ke.vdall. — I have, in former chapters, and in a separate work, endeavored to ana- 
lyze the pietism of Benjamin F. Butler. It nov/ becomes necessary that I should formally 
introduce his twin brother in politics, piety, and principle, Amos Kendall, Postmaster General 
to iMartin Van Buren, Director of the Commonwealth Bank, Kentucky, Fourth Auditor of 
the U. S. Treasury, an editor of the Globe, the Expositor, and the Kentucky Argus, and special 
agent for Jackson's advisers in bargaining with the Pet Banks for the use of the public reve- 
nue, 1833-34. If it be true, as we are told in Gil Bias, that " there are few breasts capacious 
enough to afford house room for two such opposite inmates as political ambition and grati- 
tude," some excuse may be found for the conduct of Amos Kendall towards his early bene- 
factor, Henry Clay. 

In Kendall's own account of his life and adventures, which shows that he was born on that 
day in the year in which Hull surrendered his army, he makes strong professions of meek- 
ness, humility, and Christian forbearance — '• Deacon Zebedee Kendall, of Dunstable," his 
honored sire, is introduced singing David's psalms, saying grace before meat and grace after 
meat, and offering up to heaven prayer and praise — pious appeals are made to the Lord, to 
conscience, and to the world — and the Democratic P..eview for March, 1838, paints Amos as 
"EXTREMELY SIMPLE in character — plain, mild, and unassuming in manners — 
estimable and amiable." 

O'SuUivan elevates Kendall into a very Father Mathew of temperance while he M-as at 
college, but we are reminded of Butler's famous patroon scene at the Sandy Hill bank, where 
Kendall himself, in his journal, pictures the Yankee lawyers \\-ho had gone to Kentucky to 
mend their fortimes. " We again returned to the tavern where were three or four Yankee 
emigrant lawyers, and we madk ouhselves merry with brandy." 

Amos landed in Kentucky in 1814, a lean, gaunt, hungry ad\'enturer, and, as the event 
proved, an unprincipled and ungrateful one — he was received into the family of Henry Cla}^ 
^vhen absent in Em-ope, as the instructor of his children — treated by Mrs. Clay ■with great 
kindness both in health and sickness — assisted by Mr. Clay, on his return, to get forward in 
the world, accommodated by him with a loan of $1,500, introduced to his political friends, 
patronized as an editor, aided in obtaining the public printing in Kentucky, and when, in 
1825, Clay became Secretary of State, ofi'ered a situation in the state department. "Why did 
he not accept it ? His letter'to Mr. Clay, in 1828, will explain. " You afterwards ofiered me 
(says he) a clerkship with a salary of "$1000, which I declined, expressing a willingne.ss to 
accept one of $1500." Amos was ready to join the democratic administration of Clay and 
Adams, at $1500, but couldn't take $1000. Jackson's friends, through Green, had outbid that. 
They hastened to buy Amos up — and enabled him to tm-n his marketable talents with effect 
against the character and standing of his early friend. Trading politicians may applaud his 
worldly prudence — the parasite of power will award him a vulgar sympathy — but from pure- 
minded Americans, such conduct as 1 am about to describe will ever meet with unqualified 
reprobation and deserved contempt. 

Kendall denies that he was once for a Bank of the United States and a protective tariff, or 
that he owes a debt of gratitude to Henry Clay. He assures the readers of the Expositor that 
his '• opposition to Mr. Clay was forced on by the heartlessness and ingratitude of Mr. Clay 
him.self." 

A letter of Kendall's to John C. Knowlton, of Lowell, dated Washington, July 11th, 18'29, 
appeared in the New York Evening Post. Here is an exti'act : 

>. -this iVHing iirrdisposed me to tliink well of Mr. Clay, and READILY FALL INTO THE SUPPORT 

" OF HIS POLITICAL VIEWS). .Vccordingly, when he btcaine a candidate for liie presidency, I ESPOUSED 

"HIS CAUSE with alacriiy and zeal. ^ My tiinf, my labour, and my money were all lavislied withmit 

"expectation nf rewardlO ADVANCE JMR. CL.AY. If 1 owed him or his family any obligations they were 
•• richly repiiid in tliat contest. A.MOS KENUAl^L." 

Mr. Clay was then, as he*is now, the champion of one regulatiiig bank — the United States 
Bank — in preference to one thousand of them — favored, as now, a protective tariff, and internal 
improvements by vote of Congress — and had disapproved of General Jackson's conduct in 
Florida, and pronounced it tyrannical and unjust. Kendall tells us that he preferred Clay to 
Jackson, for President — "readily fell into the support of his POLITICAL views," and 
•• espoused his cause with alacrity and zeal." Why then deny that he was " once for the 
bank 1" 



118 KENDALL UP AT AUCTION. A CASH TRANSACTION. 

derate men, Mho refused to join with either, were alike the objects of their re- 
sentment, and equally proscribed by either faction." Where is the difference 
here, in Duane's case ? He was induced to support Jackson, through a belief 
that he would act up to the manly principles laid do\\Ti in his letters to Mon- 
roe. Did he try to do it 1 

Duane took olfice in June, 1S33, and was afterwards informed that it was the 
wish of the President that he should remove the national treasure from the 



Kendall addressed a long letter to Clay, through the Frankfort Argus, which was copied into 
the Evening Post of Nov. 1827, in which he assures him that he pieferred hirn as Secretary, 
■witJi Adams as President, to the election of Jackson, and that he and Blair, since of the Globe, 
wrote in 18'25 to the members of Congress, from Kentucky, urging them to vote ai:ai?ist Jack- 
.WTi. and in favor of Adams, icith this vieir. Kendall also wrote to Cla)' before the presi- 
dential election was decided, that he preferred Jackson to Adams, all things being equal — bvit, 
said he, " if OUR INTEPcESTS can be promoted by any other arrangement, I shall be con- 
tent." " Our interests" are uppermost still. 

In Kendall's evidence before tlie Kentucky Legislatui-e, he sa3's that Mr. Clay intended to 
give him a situation at "Washington, in 1825, and that he (Kendall) stood ready to defend v.'ith 
his pen the political character of his early friend. In a letter to David White, who had voted 
in Congress for Mr. Adams as President, dated March 8th, 1828, he says, " We knew that 
Mr. Clay was to be Secretary of State, and FOR THAT REASON promoted Mr. Adams's 
election," and prevented, of course, that of Andrew Jackson. He asserts that he supported 
Adams because Clay was to be Secretary, and yet he told the Kentucky Legislatiu-e on oath, 
that he believed the charge by Jackson against Clay, of having bargained with Adams, was A 
BASE SLANDER, and that he had applied to Clay for a situation in Washington, where he 
would have defended him through the press against that slander ! In a letter addressed to 
Clay, and dated Frankfort, Oct. 11, 1826, Kendall says, "Whatever course 1 may feel con- 
slraiued to take in relation to the administration generally, I trust I shall not be the means or 
the occasion of casting any imputation upon your integrity and honor." 

Kendall swears that it is his solemn belief there was no bargain at all. But ttrm to his 
fetter to Mr. Knowlton already quoted. He there has quite a dilicrent stoiy to tell. He says : 

" In reviewin;; my course, I Iijivh but one thing to regret. It is, that I did not, resardle*=s of all impiilationB, 
"take a decisive stand ac;.inst the Union ofMesi^rs Adams and Clay in !^-5. 1 knew lh;it Mr. Clay vicilaltd llie 
"wish of bis Slate; I KNEW THAT THE UiNlON WAS LN'TERESTKD AND SKLFISH. Insiead ol being 
" SILENT, I iiufiht boldly to have denounced it. I ou^'ht to have been iW sensible as I am now l!i:it no common 
" iibli^'ation of private I'riend^iliip, and no fear of imputed ingriiiitude can justify a public man in WINKING at a 
" vSoIation of the fundaui'-nlal principles of ourfiet institutions. On iJiis p lintl am guiuy. — .VMOS KE.ND.^LL." 

There's a confession for you ! " Give me a SI ,500 place," says the pious politician, " and 
I'll call ye white as driven snow — though I know that your conduct was interested and selfish. 
Buy me at ray price — I'm in the market, and if you don't your opponents will. Hire me, and 
ni go with you for the tarilf, the bank, internal improvement, Adams, an}-thing — neglect me, 
and I will be found among your most bitter enemies. You wanned me into life, as the coun- 
tryman did the snake — if you don't wish to be stung, give me my price." Such, tliough not 
Kendall's words, is the subsiance of his offer. Clay spurned it, Kendall became his enemy, 
and used the influence Clay iiad obtained Ibr him to secure the vote of Kentucky for Jackson 
and Van Buren, next Presidential election. General Duff Green, the Jackson and Calhoun 
editor, before Blair, "once lor the bank," supplanted him, says, — " It will be ^een tliat at ilie 
very moment that he Mas negotiating with Mr. Clay for a salary of SI, 500, as the trice of his 
removal to Washington, lor the purpo.-e of vintiicating Mr. Clay against these ' SLANDERS 
which were afloat against hirn,' he was negotiating with me, for a stipulated sum, which I 
paid him to remain in Franklbrt to assail Mr. Clay." Whether Green proved that it was " at 
the very moment," I do not now remember, but if it was not, it was very soon after. "I 
winked at guilt till hired to assail it," is the substance of Kendall's pretended conlcssion to 
Knowlton. General Green was .supplied by his party with funds — Kendall got money — j aid 
his debt to Mr. Clay, and became the ready instrument oi' his enemies. General Green de- 
scribes him as " ambitious, ungrateful, mercenary, and corrupt." 

In his Idler to Knowlton, Kendall says, — 

"They (MieaiiinK tlie friends of Clay :ind .\(lanis) combncd to wilhdrnw fioiti me .nil public and frjvnte 
" PATR<)NA<;E, to destroy niv ih;ir:icier, :iiid reduce luy fumily to degr.ida.ion and be^-gary. 1 felt that Mr. 
"Clay was uuKrateful.-A.MUS KI'.NUALL." • 

I select the following passage from page 374 of the Expositor, for 1843, by Amos Kendall, 
Washington : 

"ImrunicNCK— The Latest SpECiMtN.— Mackenzie, ia his New York E.iamincr, says we were 'oTite /or a 
bank !' II:!4 laiigiiace Is ihis : 
" Week alier week, uioniU after uiontli, iho Globe takctf pleasure in dcnouitciog Mx. Tyler because be would 



MARTIN VAN BUREn's POSTMASTER GENERAL. 119 

United States Bank, and place it in other banks. He refused to do this unless 
ordered by Congress, or unless reasons should be assigned to justify his doing 
so. Thomas Ritcliie, of the Z7nio», approved of his course in thus refusing. 
He asked the opinion of Col. Duane, his father, who also told him that he had 
acted right, though he thought the bank charter unconstitutional, and disapprov- 
ed of its management. 

The speculating banks and politicians, of whom Van Buren was the ready 

not make cnmmnn cnuse with the Van Biiren clique I have described; and Kendall, once for the bank, joins 
Croswell and lollows suit.' 

There IS nothing ion barefaced for depravity to invent and malice to assert; but the serpsnt who makes a 
charge like this, slinL'S ■>nl\ his own body. 

From 1818, the Bank Moiisier never ceased to receive our blows when we could strike witli the least effect ; 
and in 1833, in tue removal of tlie deposits, v.hich Mackenzie condemns, we cut the club with which our Hercu- 
iissluwit. But far I hat measure, it would have lived uufd it pi-rislied in its own corruptions, involving llie 
Government in the ruin whicli overlook the tno confiding stDckholders. 

Th re is one conso ation in such attacks : They destroy the confidence of the people in all the libels which 
flow from the same souice upon more important personages." 

Did not Kendall do his very best to secure the election o-f Adams over Jackson in 1825, 
when he found that Clay could not be elected by the House of Representatives — and was not 
Adams then, as now, the advocate of a national bank in preference to a thou.sand unchecked 
state banks ? Kendall's Expositor contained endless harangues against bank and tariff, 
their uncon.stitutioaality, but did he not support the advocates of both, and also of internal 
improvements, till he got his i^rice ? Yes, and in 1817-18, he and his friends, and partisans 
caused charters to be granted to more than forty spurious banks, thereby llooding the state 
of Kentucky with worthless paper. 

From the Kentucky Argus, by Kendall, (copied into the National Intelligencer, Sept. 15, 1824.) 
'■Jackson will get Teimesaee and Clay will aet Kentucky as certainly as they remain candidates, and Indiana 
has but to select liiin whose policy Is most favourable to h r interests, and wiiose talents are most competent to 
promote them. Tiiat tilis is H' nry Clay, the powerful ADVOCiTEOF internal i.mi'kovi;me.\ts and ijomestic 
MANUFACTURES, no Unprejudiced man can doubt." 

In 1816, Mr. Clay voted for the late U. S. Bank, and has ever since continually avowed 
that he thinks such an institution necessary and constitutional. 

Will Kendall assert that he tried, first to elect Clay in 1824, and then Adams in 1825, be- 
ca,use they were for fhe bank, and to keep out Jackson because he was opposed to it ? He had 
better adiiait that he was a mean, sordid, mercenary adventurer, ready to go for any principles 
or any men that paid be.st. Indeed he has admitted as much in his letter to Knowlton. 

Mr. Clay, previous to Kendall's desertion to the Jackson camp, had supported a bill to 
pledge thebank bonus as an internal improvement fund — had declared that Congress might 
appropriate the revenue to construct canals and post roads — had advocated in the spring ot 
1830 a high protective tariff— had voted to censure General Jackson for his conduct in Florida 
—and had made Aiams President of the United States. All this Kendall endor.sed as demo- 
cratic, till he refused hiin a $1,530 office, while Jacksonisni held out the prospect of an auditor- 
ship at $3,000. The Arnold, the Dumouriez of politics, in 1823, joined Blair whom, as an 
eniorser for $20,000, the bank of the United States had forgiven, and hired himself out to tra- 
duce the man who^e kind family and hospitable mansion had afforded him a shelter when 
he was a hungry, friendless stranger, a briefless barrister travelling in search of strife. 
Yes, it is true, Kendall deeply injured the personal and political friend who had given him 
consideration in Kentucky, arid whose i'amily had tended him in sickness. This was done 
for money, gain — there was no principle involved. 

My impression, until I saw Clay's statement on page 69 of vol. i. of Minor's Public Docu- 
ment for 1831, was, that he owned 'mach stock in the U. S. Bank, and was deeply indebted to 
it. He stated, however, in Senate, Dec. li), 1833, that he Tiad not been counsel for the bank 
since 1825, had not held a share for many yfears, did not owe the bank a cent, had voted for it 
in 1816, but subscribed for none of its stock, and on the failure of a friend twelve or fifteen 
years before, had as his endorser, become responsible to the bank for a large amount which 
ne had paid, owing the institution no favor. 

Letter, Amos Kendal! to Henry Clay, at Washington, dated Frankfort, Ky., Jan. 21, 1825. 
'•Dear Sir : — Our leaislature is gone, but have left us no repose. We have a prospectof a contest more embittered 
than ever. I regret itj and wnuld gladly escap' fioui it ; but the fates seem to order it otiitrwise. I may mis- 
ta'ie, tint I ihmk ihe legi>l iturc will be sustained. The excitement is among those opiiosed lo riiiio\iiin tlie 
judges by any means. As I inlorined you, the ri;soluiiiins requesting ynu to vote I'.r Jackson passeil, and you 
h tv-e iloub less nceived them. Jacksun is viy second choice. M circumstances being equal between liim and 
AdauK. But if oar interest in the west can. be promoted by any other arrangement, J shall be content. .,1t any 
rate. I'i its have a President. I woild sooner vote for atiy of the three than have a Viceuereut ibr four years. 
Do wh:d ynu. think best -the ^/Jr^us will not complain, because it has faith that you will An no'liiiig to compro- 
mii the intsrebts of the western couuiry, or the nation. Sincerely your friend, AJMOsi KENDAI.L." 



120 duank's reasons right. Wright's votes wrong. 

agent, were eager to grasp the many millions of money, the proceeds of heavy 
taxation, which the tarilF of 1828 had imposed. Duane's reasons for refus- 
ing to gratify them, as stated to General Jackson, were very powerful. 

He reminded the General that the law made him responsible to Congress if 
he removed the depositcs — that the proposed pet banks were far .less sale than 
the bank of the U. S. — that Congress had pronounced the public money safe — 
that no thorough investigalion had been made into the affairs of the bank — that 
no real, adequate security would be offered by the local banks, and that he 
could not judge of their litncss or solvency by hearsay — that he had not been 
confirmed in his office by the Senate — that the U.S. Bank had received and paid 
400 millions of dollars for government, without the loss of a cent, but that it was 
a well-known fact that millions had been already lost to the country, by trusting 
the public money with the managers of local banks, the misconduct of which had 
caused much uncertainty as to the value and amount of the paper currency — 
that if the U. S. Bank was selfish, as had been said, surely the local banks would 
not prove less so — that they would trade upon the public money to be entrusted to 
them, and be unable to refund it M'hen required to do so — that perhaps it would 
be better for the government to do without any banks at all — that now was the 
time to make a full inquiry as to that — that it would be very unwise to enter into 
entangling alliances with institutions which derange, depreciate, and banish gold 
and silver, the only constitutional currency — that a thorough inquiry into the con- 
dition of the currency was much required, but that we need not look for the neces- 
sary information from interested bank agents — that it would be well to resist a 
combination of powerful monied monopolies before the only means of resistance 
would be through a public convulsion — that both the local and United States 
Banks were monopolies, alike at variance with the sovereignty of the United 
States and the general good of the people — that a removal of the deposites 
would bring on a struggle for power between the national and state banks, by 
means of which thousands of innocent persons would be ruined — and that if 
there must be banks for social or fiscal uses, surely one bank* for the whole 

* Louis McLane, Secretary of the Treasiny liefoie Duane, opposed the removal of the 
deposits, and so did Cass, though the latter was pliant and ready to go either Avay. Van Bu- 
ren, in private, professed to MeLane, lor some time after Toland's Report, and the vote in the 
H. of R. fa\'orable to the banlc, that he tno va< apposed to the rcmorul ! ! Oi' course, it was Van 
Buren, and his Safety Fund Banks, that controlled the v(jle of this state in Congress, and it 
was that vote that controlled the deposit question. [The language of the Globe, Post, and 
Argus, and of Cambreleng, Beardsley, Vanderpoel, Wright, and I'allmadge — Lawrence and 
Butler's Letters— Wright's orders to the legislature of N.' Y., through Hovt (p. 'i-K!, No. 256), 
and the 118 votes in the Assembly — also the great meeting at Tammany Hall, and John Van 
Buren's correspondence, aflbid ample proof that Van Buren and his confederates decided the 
removal of the public money. Colonel Young had a deep interest in the Safety Fund Banks, 
and we find him declaring tliat black lines ought to be drawn across the faces of the Senators 
who had censured Jackson for removing the deposits. 

In IKII, Silas Wright " would merely pronounce his opinion that the country would sustain 
the Executive arm of the government in the experiment now malcing to substitute the State 
In.stilutions for the Bank of the United States. He had most cnlire conlidence in the full and 
complete success of the experiment. It was his firm opinion that the steps that had been taken 
would redound to the honor and best interests of the country." When the b;inks broke, 
Wright talked in this fashion : " Under this law, all the existing deposit banks accepted their 
high trust to the government nnd people of the country, and received some forty millions of 
the public treasure, and yet, siranc'c to tell, before a single twelvemonth had pasNcd a^way, they 
all refuse to pay gold and silver for their notes. Nay more, and worse, they even reluse to pay 
to the government anything but their own irredeemable bank notes — those notes which the law 
prohibits the officers of the government from either receiving or paying out, for the millions 
entrusted to their safe keeping. Thi^ drafts ot the Treasurer of the U. S., drawn upon a depo- 
sit bank for a mere trust fund, belonging to individual citizens, which fund was by the govern- 
ment imported from abroad in gold and silver, and in gold and silver placed in that bank for 
safe keeping, have been dishonored and returned without payment, because the holder ol' the 



DUANE AND CALHOUN ON THE CURRENCY, IN 1834. 121 

country ,under the control of Congress, was better than a thousand banks altogether 
irresponsible — that one effect of taking the public treasure from the V. S. Bank 
(in which the public had invested seven millions of dollars), and placing it iu 
the keeping of a host of local banks, with their gambling, stock-jobbing, land 
speculating managers, might be to drive the people to adopt a third U. S. Bank, 
as a refuge from their irredeemable trash (which but for Harrison's sudden 
death and Tyler's unexpected vetoes, would have been the case in 1841). 

He did not propose the Sub Treasury scheme, but expressed the most decided 
opposition to the U. S. Bank — he would institute a thorough inquiry, but not be 
rashly guilty of a breach of the obligation of contracts toward the bank. If the 
bank had done wrong the judiciary were able to punish. He thought it danger- 
ous to place in the hands of a secretary of the treasury, dependent for his oiKce 
on the will of the President, a power to favor or punish local banks, and conse- 
quently to make them political machinery (like Van Buren's Safety Fund 
Union.) He knew that the efforts made to hasten the removal of the deposites 
did not originate with patriots or statesmen, but in schemes to promote factious 

drafts would not receive the irredeemable bills of that bank in satisfaction." Duane had 
showTi it would be so before " the experiment" was made, and that it had always been so. 
Wright knev/ that just as well in 183-1 as iu 1838. Matthew L. Davis wiites Webb, Feb. 8, 
1834, that at a meeting of the Senators for N. Y. and the committee of merchants of N. Y., 
favorable to a U. S. Bank, Wright said, " Gentlemen, I am opposed to any U. S. Bank, but if 
we must have a bank, 1 do not want a commercial but a political bank." In his speech of 
March 20, 1834, he calls the pet banks " perfectly safe agents, fully competent to discharge all 
the duties required in the collection and disbursement of the public revenue." 

" When I bow down myself in the House of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this 
thing," said Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, to Elisha the Hebrew prophet 
of God. In like manner, John C. Calhoun's clear intellect can discern and acknowledge evil 
wherever it exists, unless it be in the enslavement of the sons of Africa ; and he was now' ready 
to warn the Senate of the manifold miseries which Van Buren's extension of the N. Y. Safety 
Fund system would bring upon his country. In his speech, January 13, 1834, he foresha- 
dowed, in the clearest manner, the landjobbing of the Butlers, Wrights, Van Burens, and 
their associates — Judge Woodbury pulling the wires for the rise and fall of stocks — Hoyt 
lending Beers the pu'olic funds — John Van Buren speculating in 1834, and draM'ing cash 
from the public in 183G — Swartvvout keeping the bonds Or as he kept them — and the Man- 
hattan and its confederate banks lending the public treasure to their corrupt managers, while 
the government bade them, as if in derision, to help the merchants. They did help them, at 
the usury of cent per cent. 

Mr. Calhoun's really prophetic remarks Avere as follow ; 

" Let us not deceive ourselves — this leajiue — this association of banks — created by the Executive — bound to- 
gether liy intlnence — united in common ariicias of association — vivified and sustained by receiving the deposits 
of the public money, and having their notes converted, by being received everywhere by the Treasury, into the 
common currency of the country, is to all intents and purposes, a Bank of the United States — the E.xecutive 
Bank of the U. S., as distinguished from that of Congress. However, it might fail to perform satisfactorily the 
tisefnl functions of the Bank of the U. S., as incorporated by law, it would outstrip it — far outstrip it — in all its 
dangerous qualities, in extending the power, the influence and the corrnjition of the government. It was ii:;possible 
to conceive any institution more admirably calculated to advance these objects. Not only the selected banks, 
biit the whole banking institutions of the country, and with it the entire money power, for the purposes of 
speculation, peculation, and corruption, would be placed under the control of the Executive. A system of 
menaces and promises will be established — of menace to the banks in possession of the deposites, but which 
might not be entirely subservient to E.xecutive views ; and by promise of future favors to tho;;c who may not 
as yet enjoy its favors. Between the two, the Banks would be left without influence, honor, or honesty ; 

AND A SYSTEM OF SPECULATION AND STOCK-JOBBTNO WOULD COMMENCE, UNEQUALLED IN THE ANNALS OK OUR 

COUNTRY- 1 fear they have already couuiienced — I fear the means which liave been put into the hands of the 
minions of power by the removal of the deposits, and placing them in the vaults of dt|iendant banks, 
have extended their cupidity to the public lands, particularly in the southwest ; and that to this we must attri- 
bute the recent phenomena in that quarter — immensi: and valuable tracts of land sold at short notick 
—SALES FRAUDULENTLY PO.STPOXED TO AID THE SPECULATORS : with which, if I am not mis- 
informed, a name not unknown to this body (Gwin) has performed a |)rominent part. .As t(j stock-jobbing, this 

new arrangement will open a field which Rothschild himself may envy. It has been found hard work very 

hard, no doubt — by the jobbers in stock who have been engaged in attempts to raise or depress the price of 
United States Bank Stock ; but no work will be more easy than to raise or depress the price of the stock of the 
selected banks, at the iileasure of the Executive. Nothing more will be requind than to give or withhold de- 
posites — to draw, or abstain from drawing warrants— to pamper them at one time, and starve them at anothrr. 
Those who would be in the secret, and who would know when to buy and when to sell, vvouro 

HA.VE THE MEANS OF KKALIZING, BY DBALING IN THE STOCKS, V/UATEVEB FORTUNE THEY KIOIJT PLEASE." 



122 Jackson and his flatterers — duane and the sinecure. 

purposes, and that the whole proceeding would tend to diminish the confidence of 
the world in our regard for national credit and reputation. 

On the 20th of Sept., 1833, the Globe announced that the deposites would be 
removed. Next morning ]Mr. Duane waited on the President, and told him he 
would neither resign office nor remove the public money to the pets.* Jackson 
tried to bribe hirn, or call it what else you please, with, the $18,000 bait which 
so many have swallowed since, the Russian embassy sinecure. " My dear Mr. 
Duane (said the President), we must separate as friends. Far from desiring that 
you should sustain any injury, you know I have intended to give you the high- 
est appointment now in my gift. You shall have the mission to Russia." " I 
am sincerely thankful to you, sir (replied Duane), for your kind disposition — 
I desire no new station, and barely wish to leave my present one blameless, or 
free from apprehension for the future. Favor me with a written declaration of 
your desire that I should leave office, as I cannot carry out your views as to the 
deposites, and I will take back this letter [in which he had stated the same 
determination]." On Sept. 23d, General Jackson wrote his resolute officer, 
" I feel m.^'self constrained to notify you that your further services as secretary 

* In a letter to Joseph Neef, Sept. 3d, 1838, Mr. Duane said of General Jackson, " His 
inclinations Avere patriotic, but his passions were undisciplined. Of both, designing men took 
the advantage. The possession of power produced adulation and servilit}', and these intoxi- 
cated the President, as they had bewildered greater men. He could not bear contradiction, 
and was himself overcome b)- the lust of overcoming. At length a vindictive s-pirit mingled 

itself with feelings which, if well regulated, would have been honourable and useful. 

The President, while he fincied his will was the true spring of action, was but a purveyor for 
the ambhious and selfish men around him. While declaiming against abuses of the bank, he 
was assisting speculators in politics, stocks, and lands [such as Wright, Butler, Young, Van 
Buren, Marcy, Kendall, Hoyt, Slilwell, Stephen Allen, Blair, Cambreleng, VVetmore and 
Swartwout] to gratify their own rapaciousness. The notion that his clandestine associates 
[Kendall, Whitney, Blair, &c.] were shocked at the transactions of the bank, or at the want of 
morals in Congi-ess, is preposterous." 

The MaysviUe Eagle published a private letter from Mr. Duane to a gentleman in Ma.son 
coiuity, Kentucky, dated Philadelphia, Oct. 17, 1833, as follows: 

" Dtar Sir : I have ,1iist now received your letter of the iOtli instant, expressins your approbation of my 
cctir:<e if Herretary nt the Tre^isury. I have always l)eeii. and am, opposeil to the U. S>. fiiink, aiid to all such 
arisiocrHtic indimpnlies; hiit, I con'^idered the removal (sf the deposites unnecessary, unwise, vindictive, arbi- 
trary and U' ju-l. I believed that the law gave to the Secretary ot' the Treasury, and not to the Pre^i(l^ n , dis- 
ereiion on the question ; and I would not HCt to olilige the President nor any body the v/hen I lh"U]:ht it im- 
prf>per to do so. 1 never asked olfire — I accepted it r«-luctantly, and was renK'Ved for ;in hime^t di cliarpe of 
my duty. If to kfep olBce and $0(100 a year. 1 had given tip iny jud{;nient. 1 should have liroUfjht >h;inie upon 
the prrt> hairs of my father, and upon my numerous children : so that I am content to return to hiinible life 
with a tranquil mind. W. J. Di-ane." 

" Mr. Duane was dismissed (.say Blair, Van Burea and Kendall, through the Globe of 
Nov. 19) for faithlessness to his solemn written pledges, and for the exhibition of bad feelings 
which made him totally unfit for the .station to which he liad been elevated. He was nut dis- 
missed m?rely for refusing to remove the deposites.'' Henry Clay explained the tiling more 
clearly in one of his .s}>ecclies. " A .'^on (said he) of one of the lathers of democracy, bv an 
administration profcs-^ing to be democratic, was expelled from office, and his place supplied, 
by a gentleman, who, throughout his whole career, lias been unii'onaly oprosed to democracy." 
Mr. Taney wi;S ready to oblige Wall street, Hoyt, Butler, Lawrence and Crmbreleng, cy re- 
moving many millions of dollars from a bank whose pajcr circulated throughout the Union snd 
abroad, to werk banks whose bills had only a local circulation, and of whose stock the Union 
held not a dollar. 

Flattery sent Napoleon to Moscow — it induced Jackson to di.smiss Duane, to cause his 
character to be traduced, and to cling to Kendall, Van Buren, Blair and Butler, who had 
mocked and sneered at his pretensions as a candidate for the presidency in 1823 and '24, 
while the Duanes, father and son, were affording him Iheir unbought, disinterested and power- 
ful support. In August, 1833, Van Buivn had three Safety Fund Commit-sioner:^— Amos 
Kendall was despatchetl from Washingion as Coinmi.'^sioner the fourth — James Gordon 
Bennett was his crony — they quarrelled — Bennett ))ublished Kendall's private corrc.-pondence 
with him, adding, that " a.'^suming at times the spirit of enthusiasm for liberty, and purity of 
"purpose, you [Kendall] contrive to hide purposes of the deepest avarice, and to conceal llie 
"most unshrinking ferocity towards tliose wl^o presume to cross your path." 



JAMES KNOX POLK. 123 

of the treasury are no longer required." And from that day to this, Duane has 
remained a full private ; while Taney, his successor, as the recompense of his 
pliant suppleness in a dishonest cause, has ascended to the seat of John Marshall, 
as Chief Justice of the Union ! Does any one suppose that Taney, had he 
resisted Van Buren & Co.'s spoliation scheme, would have received that promo- 
tion ? No, indeed. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



Polk and the Peta. — Polices Early Life. — Bank Defaulters. — Griswold on the 
Banks. — Van Buren\s Polici/in 1837. — Mechanics'' Bank. — Marcifs Mortgage 
and Ten Million Bunk. — Van Buren., Lawrence, and Marcy^s Message. — 
/. Hoyt. — Alez. Wells. — CoL Samuel Young — of Irish descent — a Lawyej- — 
in Convention, 1821 — for Clay — on Slave Representation — a dealer in Bank 
Stocks and Scrips— for Marcy—for Banks — on the Wattrvliet Bank — on Van 
Buren — begging for Bank Stock. 

The history of the pet bank experiment, in which* Mr. Polk was the most 
conspicuous actor in-doors, and Mr. Kendall without, would fill a goodly folio. 

* James Knox Polk, President of the United States, labored indefatigably, in 1832 and 
afterwards, to remove the public treasure to the pet banks, put down the United States Bank, 
and generally to give success to whatever measures Kendall and Van Buren chose to propose 
or countenance. As I shall have lo notice his votes and proceedings on many occasions, in 
this volume, it may be the proper time now to give my readers a very brief sketch of his 
early life. 

The Democratic Review of 183S states that he was born in Mecklenburgh count}', North 
Carolina, Nov. '2, 1795— he is, therefore, like Silas Wright and B. F. Butler, a little over fifty 
years old. Soma accounts make his ancestors Irish, others Scottish— some say their original 
nams was Pollock, others that it was Polk. It appears that his branch of the family had 
resided in Maiyland, in Pennsylvania, in North Carolina, and finally removed to Tennessee. 
Andrew Jackson stated, in 1811, that he had known "James K. Polk from his boyhood, and 
that " a citizen more exemplary in his moral deportment, more punctual and exact in busi- 
ness, mora energetic and manly in the expression of his opinions, and more patriotic, does 
not live." 

Mr. Polk's father is still alive — he was a farm?r, and removed to Tennessee in 1803, when 
Jam3s K. was in his eleventh year — it is also said that hs acted as a surveyor, and, w.th his 
fa-nily, hal to toi| hard for a liviag in t'xi valley of tli2 Dack river, tlien a vvild-^rne-ss. Jamis 
K. is the oldist of tei children — ic^iiriJ the r"u;Um:nts of an English and a classical educa- 
tion neir his hj.n.\ ani after y:ars of sufering from a very painful coaiplaint, was relieved 
by a surgieal operation. He jjaiael high honors at the University of North Carolina— was 
assidajas, persevering, and re,M'irin his attendance— a goo J aiathematical and classical 
scholar. In 1819, he began to stu U' the law with the celebrated Felix Grundy, of Nashville, 
was admitted as a lawyer of Tennessee in 182J, ani was well employed in his line. He 
ssryeJ as clerk to the Tennessee legislature, was next a member for Maiary, his place of 
residence, ani in lSi5, in his 3)th year, elected to Congress. If he was opposed to a national 
bin V, he kept his opinio.is to hi nself, for the first two years in which he sat in Congress, b it 
after Van Buren went to Washington as secretary, to wit, in August, 1829, he began to give 
the Tennesseans some hints about " the monster." Upwards of twenty years since, he mar- 
ried the daughter of Joel Childers, a merchant of Rutherford comity, Tenn., and who had kept 
a hotel ani boarding-ho ise in Norfolk, Va. Mrs. Polk has no children— is said to be imo*- 
te.atatious, q liet, do nestic, ani religious — not foal of show, dancing, dissipation, and late 
hours. Mr. Polk, Mr. Buchanan, and, if I mistake not, Mr. Bancroft, are named as staid 
Presbyterians, like Silas Wright. It is greatly to Mr. Polk's credit that he has the reputation 
of being no duellist, no gambler, but a steady opponent to spiculatian. He was fourteen years 
in Congress, and two or three of these years Speaker, having been chosen in Dec, 1855, and 
in Sept., 1837. No more thorough going party man can be found than Polk— he is very 
indastriaus, and while on the flojr of Congress is reported never to have missed a vote. As 
he received a vote of thanks at the close of the session of 1837, for his impartiality as Speaker, 



124 ELECTIONEERING THROUGH TREASURY BANKS. 

Jd August, 1836, the banks had about 40 millions, without interest — in April, 
about 32 millions. Of these 32 millions, the Union Bank of Tennessee had 
$480,916— Commonwealth Bank, Boston, $1,009,731— Manhattan Bank,N.Y., 
$3,512,791— Bank of America, N.Y., $3,70b,714— Mechanics' Bank, N.Y., 
$3,816,261 — Commercial Bank, Cincinnati, $395,135, and its agency at St. 
Louis, Mo., $1,471,157— Girard Bank, Philadelphia, $2,540,9"! 0— Branch 
Bank of Alabama, Mobile, $1,694,464 — Planters' Bank of Mississippi, Natchez, 
$2,649,596— Farmers and Mechanics' Bank, Detroit, $702,380- Bank of 
Michigan, $960,364. The influence for Van Buren's election, exercised by the 
state pet banks and the national pet banks, the contracts, the 60,000 federal 
offices, the millions of stock thrown into the market as bribes to partisans, by 
the N.Y. Legislature, the land sales, made to suit favorites, the cusiom houses, 
the post offices, and the state offices and influence going the same way with the 
federal — these powers, added to the betting, gambling, and electioneering, with 
the men who hoped to get offices, get contracts, get some advantage or other, 
through Van Buren, surely turned the scale, and with the 777 presses in his 
favor, made him president. His skill lay in marshalling the powers of intrigue, 
corruption, and intimidation, and he succeeded. In Feb., 1834, the deposites 
were only 11^- millions, of which five millions were in three N.Y. banks. The 
25 pets had, at this tim.e, more public money free of interest, than they had bills 
in circulation. The Tradesmen's, Union, and Lawrence's N. Y. State banks, 
were made pets in August, 1836 — and we find the Globe by Blair, some years 
after, complaining that " MORE THAN 48 MILLIONS OF DOLLARS 
HAD BEEN LOST BY THE BANK DEFAULTERS" during the war of 
1812. Did not Polk and Van Buren know^ that just as well in 1834 as in 1840 ':* 

I infer that he ha.s a great command of temper. He is a ready debater, makes long and 
animated .speeches, and was a hard ivorking legislator. It is .stated that he is about 5 feet 7 
inches in height, that his countenance bears the impress of anxiety and care, that his 
voice is unmusical but .'Strong, and tliat he is clear-headed, firm, an attentive listener, and 
possessed pf a good share of common sense. Some say his face is repulsive, otiiers that it is 
interesting, and that in feeling and manner he is kind and courteous. Such is his piety, that 
Governor Branch reports that during tlie four years he was at college, he (Polk) never 
missed prayers. 

* B. F. Butler, in one of his secret epistles to Jesse Hoyt, about the removal of the deposit&s, 
dated Feb. iJlth, 1834, has this remark, that " As for supposing that Newbold, George Griswold, 
Stephen Whitney, or any of the old federal commercial men, were with us on this occasion, 
for any other reason than because they found il for theii- interest to go with us, I never for one 
single instant had such an unwarrantable idea.'' p. ITl. 

In a letter to James G. King, dated New York, Sept. 1), 1840, George Griswold has tliese 
remarks: " 1 never look any part with the ofliceis or agents of the government, in counselling, 

advising, or recommending the jcmoval of the deposites In Oelober, 183t), when the 

banks were suffering under the operation oi' the distribution law, and were on the point of 
suspending specie pavments, and in the opinion of tiiose who knew all the facts, WOULD 
HAVE SUSPENDED IN LESS THAN ONE WEEK, if not relieved, 1 did go to AVash- 
ington, and, with the aid ol others, prevailed on tiie secretary to p(jstpone the payment of drafts 
on this city, and in other ways relieved the hanks from a call Ibr more tluui a million of 
specie, .*;G00,000 of which was payable in ten days; enabling them to continue specie pay- 
ments, and increase their loans to merchants." 

It thus appears tliat tlic banks were ju.st a-s ready to break in Oct. 183(5, as in May, 1837. 
That would have interfered siimewhat with Van Buren's election, and rendered it necessary 
for General Jackson to make veiy material alterations in his farewell iiddress ne.xt March. 

Van Buren called a special meeting of Congress in the lall of 1837, and gave indulgence 
to the broken banks and mercantile defaulters — that is, to the British and otlier foreign traders 
and manufacturers, and to the, bank (H England, at the expense of the American people and 
their interests.. 

In Woodbury's I'eport, accompanyirig the president's message, and dated 5th Sept., 1837, he 
' aid that with regard i.o tiie pet banks, tlieir specie, as compareil to their circulation, was nearly 
as great in May, 1837, Avhen they stopt, as in Nov. 183G, when they went on — tliat their 
immediate means, as compared with their immediate liabilities, was as one to two and a half, 



marcy's mortgage message. 125 

The public balances in banks, Jan. 1, 1837, were $45,968,523— on the 1st of 
Jan., 1S3S, it was estimated that the balance was $34,187,143, but of that sum 
Van Burea computed that only $1,085,498 were available. 

Perhaps the most artful and dishonest proposition made to the Legislature of 
N.Y. io 1834, was by Governor Marcy, on the 24th of March, to lend the 
banks five or six millions ; borrow the money on a mortgage of all the property 
in the state, by the issue of state due bills ; and, if necessary^ charter a ten mil- 
lion bank in the city of N.Y. The pretext for doing this was, that the U. S. 
Bank was harassing the state institutions.* Of course this was untrue, and he 

and as this was greater than the usual ratio in the best of times with banks having large 
deposites, he assm-ed Congress that their failure was not generally anticipated. 

He admitted that the banks failed without cause, to make ^ain at the public expense, on the 
40 millions due to the nation. As to the merchants' bonds for duties of which they had got 
six months credit through a bad laAv, and realized and sent the cash to England and France, 
long before that term expired, to help foreign trade at the expense of American credit and 
currency he said that Van Buren, without any law, had given them a further credit from 
May to'Sept., less or more (that they might be enabled to export the more specie). The govern- 
ment was bankrupt— it had nominally many millions, but Van Buren and Polk's treasury 
banks had clutched the whole and held on with a death grip. The banks had given security, 
so Woodbury athrms— so the Globe boasted when Calhoun doubted their solvency— then they 
could be insured for a half per cent. ! 

The government should have borrowed ten, twelve, fourteen millions of dollars, or whatever 
sum in'hard snecie would have saved it from the deep disgrace of otTering its creditors orders 
on broken banks in payment of lawful debts, on contract or otherwise, which it knew would 
be paid, if paid at all, in a currency from 6 to 16 per cent, below real money, which difference 
they would divide as plunder, Avhile the honest debtor was cheated and the government 

It appears that while the revenue was raised from the payments of many merchants, those of 
(hem who had to borrow had often to pay two per cent, a month, wliile the banks and brokers 
had the use of 20 to 40 millions without interest. Some years ago the Alb. D. Advertiser 
said that " the Mechanics' Bank, N. Y., recently found that more than a million of dollars of 
its funds had been most illegitimately used.'' The Alb. Argus remarks on this, that it must 
refer to transactions of 1837. just before the banks became bankrupt, and that if it v;eie so, it 
showed ''■ that at a time when the bank had perhaps two millions of the public money, instead 
of granting proper accommodations to the regular business of the city, more than a million of 
dollars had been used, probably, either in loans to speculators, or to lirokers, who shaved the 
notes of merchants at 3 and 3 per cent, per month." 

* At this tiiiie, Van Buren, through the Argus, exclaimed (Feb. 17), " Let that man, or that 
newspaper, which attempts to disturb the public confidence in the banks, or in the merchants, 
be marked as an enemy, and treated as such." Such was their reckless course, that the 
whole of the sixty-nine Safetv Fund Banks, had only two millions of dollars on the 4th of 
March, to meet nearly thirty-five millions of debts, over thirty of which were due on demand. 
Is it not clear that they were mere machines to do the executive will 1 Could not the servile 
Taney, at the nod of' his superiors, have broke them any day in the year1 They had not 
one dollar in cash to sixteen of debts! A Safety Fund indeed! Well might the Buffalo 
Commercial exclaim of Marcy and his colleagues, that -'To humbug the people, to use the 
power to repay partisan services without regard to fitness for station, to succeed in a stock 
gambling operation, and to make honorable men the innocent means of bolstering up an in- 
solvent bank, seems to be the end and purpose of the several actors. But the mask is re- 
moved, and the disguises stripped off by their own hands." Turn to Stephen Allen's instruc- 
tions to Hoyt, No. 241, page 241, for a Tammany Bank of the Safety Fund order ; and say 
whether that letter does not strip the mask in right earnest off VanBuren's Receiver General 
of the Sub-Treasury, who had through life assmned the garb of a hardtmoney democrat ? 

Turn next to [No. 264, page 250,] John Van Buren's letter to Hoyt, dated Saturday, March 
22d, 1834, the day on which Marcy wrote and dated his mortgage message, which he withheld 
from the legislature till Monday the 24th. May not that message have been of Olcott & 
Co.'s manufacture ! Van Bm'en tells that it Avas got up to " charm you Yorkers— Lawrence 
will run like the cholera." Lav/rence had betrayed his constituents, was deeply versed in 
stock-jobbing, had become rather unpopular, and the message was needed to get him elected 
over Verplanck by any majority at all. If Marcy told John Van Buren on the 22d about his 
message that was to affect the public stocks, so that he might employ Hoyt to buy S25,000 
worth on Monday, and sell out on Monday week, $1,000, or $1,500 richer, through the secret, 



126 AVARICE HAS NO COMPASSION, GAIN NO BOUNDS 

knew it, but he was the confederate of Hoyt, Allen, Lawrence, Van Buren, 
Olcott, and the base clique of stock-jobbers who then (as now," I fear) controlled 
the monied affairs of the Union. Eleven or twelve millions of dollars had been 
withdrawn by Taney and Kendall, from the United States Bank and branches, 
and six millions and a half had been, by Jackson's order, lent to the favorite 
banks of Van Buren, in IS.Y., to lend out, but no interest was charged to them. 
They had the use of about $800,000 of other U.S. monies. They had in their 
custody between two and three millions of the funds of the state. They had 
eight and a half millions on deposit for safe keeping by individuals. They owed 
the United States Bank at least a million. They had lent out their capital — lent 
their credit in the form of bank notes, some twelve millions — and also lent the 
above twenty-one millions of borrowed cash — and yet they growled, grumbled, 
and stormed, insomuch that the Bank Junto at Albany and their confederates in 
New York, set Marcy at work to influence the gamblers' or stock market, and 
affect the elections, by a moonshine message or proclamation in which it was 
proposed to mortgage the farms and other property through the slate for another 
five or six millions, and lend that also to the Safety Fund Banks. It may seem 
incredible, but most true it is that, under these circumstances, did Polk's present 
war secretary present the state with the prospectus of his mortgage. Morris, 
now postmaster at New York, was in the Assembly, hard at work pushing 
through the annual batch of Sandy Hill charters, for the good of the party and 
gain of the initiated. The Dramatis Person^e played their parts well. Our 
circuit judge, Edmonds, in the senate, and our postmaster,Morris, in assembly, 
moved the reference of Marcy 's grave suggestions to a joint committee, and with 
Angel, Livingston [C. L.] and two or three dittoes, formed the committee. 

is it not equally probable tnat he gave copies to Olcott, Allen, Butler, Corning, Croswell, 
Wright, Lawrence, and the other d?alers in politics, to enable them to take time by the fore- 
lock 1 Van Buren's message to Ho^t, with his " 1 fear stocks will rise after Monday," s^Ijows 
how a stock-jobbing band of liypocrites, in power, made fortunes ten years ago. Is it not very 
prj'jable that o.ir Attorney General made many thousands, with his friends, by doing with 
his father's m-^ssages when President, as he had with Marcy's when Governor 1 Why does 
he curse and blaspheme at Hoyt for not having always spare cash to be used in his stock- 
gambling 1 Was the coUectorship bestowed on that unprincipled profligate in order that the 
Van Buren family might be provided for out of Jesse's sub-treasury ? Hi am biameable for 
printing liicse secrets, as a warning for the convention, pray. Col. Young, is not Marcy a 
thousand times more censurable for telling s/ri/^ .wc/cit, that our crowm law^-ers may make 
fortunes out of them 1 The Argus and the Evening Post of 183-1, like Marcy's message, tell 
ns of privation, bankruptcy, and public distress. As the contractor near Patrick Henry could 
only cry, " money, money, bsef, beef," our Attorney Genera! Van Buren could only think of 
.scrip, stocks, and hocus-pocus. If money, gain, avarice, were uppermost in his youthful 
mind, in 1831, how keen must his scent b3 now alter the dollars ! In I83l3he was borrowing 
of th:^ banks and speculating with Hoyt and Cutting. See page 25^1. in June, 1830, Thomas 
W. Olcott was re-elected President of the Mechanics' and f'armers' Bank, Albany; Elbejl 
Olcott was its cashier, C. E. Dudley its Vice President. On the 5th of June, 1837, this bank 
which had got two millions of the dcposites to use jii,ilici<>vsli/ hcfitre tlvc P reside nttal ckctioii, 
but had fbun I it profitable to stop payment, made J. Van Buren a director, and, 1 think, its 
Attornev. " ilevclations had recently come to light," said Mr. Wells of N. Y., in the Assem- 
bly, at Albany, Fob. 25, iSltJ, " which let us into a side view of the piety, finance, and politi- 
cal trickery of the Regency; and could the curtain be entirely lilted, a sight would be witnes.s- 
vd which would increase a hundred fold the abhorrence with which the people now view 
Albany and Albany inliuence. He would kill the Argus in its old age as he would strangle 
the Atlas in its birth." 

I don't like these state loans and national loans to individuals and chartered concerns.' 
They are another word (or gifts; the country rarely sees its cash again. "Of all creditors, 
the State is the unluckiest." Gojd security and regular instalments to be paid with interest; 
no loss t J fall upo:i the public. It reads very well, but has a false quarter. If the security is 
goo I there ar-^ 'len;l:rs enough, withjut taxing the million to enable the party uppermost to 
accommolate their friends, or John Van Buren's, or to earn their thousands by future Marcys' 
messages and mortgages. 



V COLONEL SAMUEL YOUNG. 127 

When I read* Colonel Young's strictures on my publication, wherein Attorney 
General Van Buren's improper conduct in this mortgage business is partly 
uncloaked, I confess I felt some surprise, but the following correspondence 
since published fully explains everything. The patriot who, while he was 



* Colonel Samukl Young has some valuable qualities ; and if he is not what I could wish, 
and what I once believed him to be, let it not be forgotten tiiat the Paternoster asks heaven lo 
preserve erring humanity from temptation ; and, that Samuel Young lias, for about as long a 
period as the Israelites took to traverse the wildernes';, on their way to Canaan, tiie Oregon of 
ineir time, been a placeman and a politician breatiiing the mepliiiic atmosphere of Albany. 
He has been an etieciive and practical friend of etiucation, and has not for some live and 
twenty years voted for special chartered banks. He would have been supported by Wright, 
and elected Senator in Congress in place of the polite and pliant Di.x, had not a I'ear of his 
anti-slaverv principles, which might have marred the Texan annexation, inlerferetl. While 
Wright aiid Van Buren, with Webb, Marcy, Croswell, Jones of N. Y. and otiiers, were 
actively employed in discouraging the proposition Ibr a state convention to amend theconsiim- 
tion of 1821, Young came boldly forward in the foremost rank of its advocates. Whether his 
good qualities are .shaded over with failings and inconsistencies, which his acknowledged 
abilitie-s and great energy of character scarce atone for, 1 am not perhaps in a position to form 
a correct judgment. 

Colonels. Young states that his ancestors, (how far back, or whether on the father or mothers 
side, or on both"?) were from Ireland, in his youth, I am told, he was employed in larming 
work, which, like W". H. Crawford, he exchanged for the law. In the August term of InOT, 
he was admitted an Attorney of the Supreme Court of this State — and, being I'avorable to the 
then administration, the council of appointment, [ClintonianJ in March, IHOH, appointed him 
a justice of the peace for Ballston, in Saratoga county, with John W. Taylor. Un the same 
month, Van Buren was presented with the othce of Surrogate of Col umi)ia. Young was thus, at 
one an.l the same time, an attorney to plead, and a judge in the primary conn of his town, a 
union of offices not to be commended, any more than Van Buren's Attorney-generalship, 
united with a seat on the bench of the Court of Errors, and the legal practice of a counsellor, 
pleading for hire before his own court. 

On the 2jth of Sept. 1814, a legislature, friendly to Madison's administration, and a vigorous 
prosecution of the war with England, met at Albany; and the Assembly chose Samuel Young 
for speaker, and Aaron Clark, since Mayor of N. Y., their clerk. Young was first chosen, in 
1812, as a 'republican' member of the Assembly, for Saratoga, and gave a firm support to the 
cont3st, voting for Madisoaian electors and against Clinton. Lately, in Senate, he said, that 
•when he entered public lite he had a flourishing law business, with four students, two of 
whom had b3conie distinguished judges of the State; and that he had made no more i)y iiis 
public services than h3 would have done if he had refused office. He was the steady friend of 
Tompkins, supported Clinton for Governor in 1817, and turned against hiin when Van 
Buren did. 

In 1819, Col. S. Young was a candidate for the office of U. S. Senator, and received the 
sup:x)rt ot Van Buren, who well knew that he would not be elected. Both of them avowed 
the.'r opposition to Rufus King, the Senator whose term was about to expire, whom their 
presses denouncxt as a federalist, though Van Buren or his friends had elected him in 1813. 
Next year, (1820,) Van Buren and Marcy wrote a pamphlet in favor of King — Young disap- 
peared as a candidate, wheeled into line v\'ith Roger Skinner, Benj. Butler, Yates, Van Buren and 
M.trcy, an I assisted to elect King for ano her six years; and at the next vacancy, Van Buren, 
through the caucus system, and the aid of King's friends, was sent to accompany King, in the 
Senate, at Washington. 

At the State Co.nvention, 1821, Young, whom Hammond calls an upright, faithful man, 
opiwsed the idea of giving the black population votes ibr governor, senators, assemblymen, 
&c., because they were ignorant, and therefore unfit to judge of the contluct or character of 
public m;n, a degraded race, and, as yet, incapable of worthily exercising the duties which an 
elector is in dity bound to discharge for the common weltare. He opposed, in 1821, the elec- 
tion by the people of their ju.stices of the peace, and mayors of cities, but supported with ability 
against Van Buren, the present .system of universal suHrage. In 182(5, when Clinton brought 
the-se great measures again before the people. Young supported both. Young and Van Buren 
now excuse their opposition in 1821 to several popular amendments, by saying that they were 
proposed to induce the people to reject the whole constitution, as amended. Why then ditl the 
party of Van Buren and Young then oppose the common sense pjoposiiion of Judge Kent and 
De Witt Clinton to allow the people to vote on the amendments separately, and refuse or 
accept according to the deliberate sentiment of the communityl Even now, the question of 
giving the unchecked rights of an electt)r to a man who can neither read nor write — who is 
unable to sign his own name, or pronounce tlie letters of the alphabet from a book — lo a man 



128 YOUNG FOR CLAY— HIS OPERATIONS WITH THE BANKS. 

seeking the public approbation by the most ultra denunciations of what he called 
a corrupt system, stood a steady beggar at every new bank door to SOLICIT a 
share of the " unclean drippings," was not likely to favor such exposes as mine. 
If it was Van Buren and Buller's turn to-day, it might be his own to-morrow. 

who cannot read either our laws or constitutions — who sees in the recorded votes of congress- 
men, in print, only such scratches as a hen and chickens might have imprinted with their feet 
on the journal bel'ore him — is a very Pi-ave and serious one-^whethcr the man's skin is white 
or black, or his birth-place, Africa, the Carolinas, Ireland, Germany, or Long Island. Wc 
want good government. Will ignorance, and the prejudices inherent lo such a state, turn the 
scale in our elections, and seciure that blessing 1 On the contrary, is there not a more than 
semblance of gambling and hazard given to the system which accepts Tom's mark at 2l, he 
being incapable of writing, and refuses Dick's signature at 20, though educated like a Clinton, 
Calhoun, or Jefferson? 
Col. Young addressed a letter to Hon. Jesse Clark, dated Ballston, Sept. 29, 1824, as follows: 

"Dear Sir — I have received yours of the 20th ins:., iu which you inquire whether my opinion in reference to 
tlie ilectoral law has chan;;ed. 

" Since the first OLiit uion of the question at tlie last election, I have uniformly entertained and expressed an opi- 
nion in fiivor ol trnntfTerriiig the clioice oT Pri.^idential ekctors from tht legislature to thf ballot boxes. 1 have en- 
tertained and expre.-i.-'ed this ojiinion, not only hecau-^e I believe that such a law would be correct in principle, but 
because I ua-; satisfied lliat it was called lor by public sentiment. 

"1 have, wiihiii ilie last tive or six weeks, rectivtd many letters from various parts of the state, making the 
sanic inqniiy as yours, and sonie of Iheni asking my opinion in refrence to the candidates lor the presidency. I 
have nn dbjoctinn thut my sentiments on all political subjects should be known ; but 1 liave felt great reluctance 
to be the or?a;i of their publicity. 

"The m.iny pie.<?ing sulicitations, however, which I had received, induced me eight or ten days since, to write 
a letter to Edward Hudson, Esq., meml)er of Assembly from Madison county, in answer to one from him, in 
which I state my opinion as above on the electoral law, and also that I prefer Mr. Clay among the presidential 
candidates, and giving in short my reasons for this preference. I have authorised him to make such use of my 
jetler as he may deem proper, and of course I expect he will procure its publication. 

"I am, sir, with sentiments of respect and friendsliip, yours, <kc. bAIMUEL YOUNG." 

On the 29th of Oct. 1827, an American system county convention Avas held at Ballston, near 
Young's residence, of which he was a member, and chairman of its corresponding committee. 
This Convention adopted an adth'ess unanimously, in which Adams and Clay's administration 
was highl}' lauded for its friendship toward domestic manufactures and internal improveanents. 
"The Adininistiation [Adams'] encourages with equal and impartial protection, tlie great 
"interestii of the North and the South. The apposition strive to trample under foot the interests 
"of the North, and limit their encouragement to the productions of southern states and slave 
"labor — pampering the pride and aristocracy of southern Nabobs, and preferring the prosper- 
"ity of old England and Scotland, to that of New England and the other free States." The 
Albany Argus spoke of this convention approvingly. 

Late discussions at Albany have discovered to the public more of Young's real character 
than was generally known before, by a revelation of facts lor which I dare say most people 
who had heard his denunciations of bank and canal corruption were unprepared. So far from 
being a pure man himself, he, the terror af corrupt bankers, trathckiiig brokers, and bribed, 
corrupt legislators — he, whose high sense of honour in refusing to sit with Van Buren's pro- 
fligate confederates. Senators Bishop and Keinble, good men admired and respected — -had 
dabbled in the stock of some ten or twelve of the privileged banks of the .slate; taken his 
share of the .spoils like Croswell, Marcy, Olcott and Corning; and Ixnight and sold many 
thousands of dollars worth, with all the keenness of a veteran Wall street stock-jobber. 
Young's exclamations of horror at the M-ickedness of bank craft, taken in this view, remind 
one very forcibly of the pious Butler lashing most vigorou.^ly the "greedy speculators and arro- 
gant monied aristocracies of the state," through the Sandy Hill Times [p. IGO], said Butler 
occupying, at the same moment, the President's chair of perhaps the iiio:>t infamous of these 
'arrogant' concerns that Van. Buren had chartered. The cry uf'stop thief ' by a culprit 
has oflener than once .saved the guilty, and the exclamation of 'mad dog' condemned the 
innocent. 

Colonel Young has not voted for a bank charter since 1822 oi" 1823. He holds, or has held 
a large amount of stock, in the following banks, namely the Watervliet bank — Seneca county 
bank — City Bank, Albany — Saratoga counly btink — Herkimer county bank' — R(xhester 
Lank — Commercial Bank oi" Oswego — Steuben counly banlc — IJtica bank — Lockport bank. 

It is possible that he may have had an intere.-t at Sandy Hill or Buflalo in 1819. It appears 
that he has voted for all .sorts of corrupt charters — has held on to lucrative offices until he has 
thereby acqijircd a large fortune — has speculated in lands, in legislation, in scrip, in every 
thing — and now comes forward, laic in life, to act the i)art of Cato, the censor, with a view, as 
some say, lo the occupancy of the scat now filled by Silas Wright. Mcihinks the discussions 
of this session of the legislature have destroyed his chance of that promotion, among the honest 
pure minded, and patriotic electors. Such men as Butler, Van Buren, and their unexpected 



YOUN'G SOLICITING BANK STOCK. 129 

My Lives of Ho}^! and Butler, the State Printing, and the Texas slave ques- 
tion, are working miracles at A.lbany. Like the diving bell to a wrecked East 
Indiaman, they are bringing to light the works of other days. The knaves' 
league is broken ; the old regency are uncloaking each other. Croswell, in a late 
Argus, publishes the following note, addressed to Lyman Covell, Esq., and dated, 

3:^" Ballston, lOiJi May, 1333. Dear Sir: Without the pleasitre of a personal acquaint- 
f:^ ancj, psroiit ni3 to take the liberty to solicit you to subscribe, in my name, for slock in the 
^:^ CiijniLUig Canal Bank to the amount ot j?2500. I wish to make a permanent investment 
§;^ in the Bank to that amount ; and it has been suggested to me, by a mutual friend of ours, 
i:^ that you would probably be willing to do the kind office of making the application to the 
g^" commissioners for me. Should you consent to do this, A. B. Dickinson, Esq., will hand 
1^ you the money lor the subscription deposit. Youi's, &c. S, YOUNG. 

" P. S. 1 have added a warrant of attorney on the next page. 

" I hereby authorize Lyman Covell, Esq., for me and in my name to subscribe for shares of 
stock in the Chemung Canal BanJi, amounting to two thousand five hundred dollars. 

S. YOUNG." 

The Argus's correspondent writes Croswell, that " Mr. ovell did the ' kind 
office' as solicited bv Col. Young, Mr. A. B. Dickinson furnishing the money for 

apologist in the Senate, will, it is fondly hoped, surely find that they have undervalued the 
sagacity and morality of modern N. Y. 

In 1833, Young was chairman of the Herkimer convention, which nominated to the people 
as a patriot governor, the cunning and corrupt W. L. Marcy. On the same year he published 
a pamphlet against the U. S. Bank, and in 1835 (see Argus, May 11) signed an address of the 
members of the legislature to their constituents, in which Van Buren's Safety Fund is called 
an improv^ement— that that system and its vigilant commissioners had protected the banks, 
some of which would have failed else during the panic caused, they tell us, by the U. S. Bank— ' 
and that the fund would soon be as large as to protect the people, in case the losses were not 
very wide spread, which was not expected. He voted .same year to allow everybody to set up 
a bank, but against the bill of 1839, which modified the restraining act. [See psge 174 \o 
page 183.] Hammond thinks that the excellent bill to give every school district a public 
library, would have been lost but for S. Young and L. Beardsley's eflbrts in its favor. In 1839, 
Young and Spraker were the minority opposing a repeal of the law prohibiting bank notes 
under S5. 

In his Finance Report of 1839, he tells us that the bank note issues of the privileged corpo- 
rations form a " stupendous system of fraud, falsehood, crime and suiTering," and says muc!i 
more to their injury — yet it appears he has been a very active builder of the system. His 
conduct and his language are strangely inconsistent. 

In 1813, in a bill to incorporate Thomas Storms, &c., with $600,000 capital, as a manufac- 
turing company, Young moved to make the capital two millions, but could not carry it — Van 
Rensselaer moved to allow the corporation to do BANKING business ; and when another 
member proposed to strike out banking. Young voted to retain it ! In 1814, a bill to allow 
the Merchants' Bank, Albany, a charter, for the city only, was attempted to be improved bv 
Young, who moved to give them power to bank also at Ballston Spa. Its charter was to be 
a million, and Young voted for a motion to oblige it to lend S'200,000 to manufactiuxrs. 
That same year an elfort was made to incorporate the N. A. Mining and Coal Company, as 
a bank, and for this also did Young vote. So say his brother senators, for I have not 
specially referred to the journal. He voted against the bill in 1818. 

In I8l8, the New York Franklin Bank charter was carried forward by Young's vote one 
step, yeas 13, nays 12, but at the final passage of the bill he voted against it. The Assembly 
rejected and sent it back to the Senate, and then sent for it again, and Young, though he had 
professed to oppose it, voted to send it back tn them, but Van Buren dodged. Young supported, 
by his votes, the Chenango Bank, as did Van Buren's brother-in-law and state printer ; but 
Van Buren himself dodged the last vote, as he knew the bill could be carried without him, 
others assuming the responsibility. Young dodged the two final votes on the Cherry Valley 
Bank, Van Buren remaining both times as a nay, there being enough to carry it without 
him, including, of course, his brother-in-law, Cantine, with the yeas. In 1821, Young voted 
for the North River Bank charter. When, in 1818, it was proposed to enact, that if a person 
should ask payment of its notes from a bank, and it were to refuse, it should be liable to pay 
interest on said notes from the date of its refusal, Avith costs of suit, Bowne, Van Buren, 
Young, Tibbets, and Roger Skinner voted NO ! 

One of the corrupt banks of 1836 was the Water\iiet, presided over by an Olcott, who dis- 
appeared. Young, while denouncing the S3-stem, took $2,000 stock, and "lost it. His conduct 
in this was like John Randolph's, who, after doing his utmost against the U. S. Bank charter, 



130 folk's pledges ; young's spectulations ; his position. 

the subscriptions and deposits, Col. Young being the fifth applicant on the list, 
but the Colonel's application was not granted, by the board of commissioners, as 
appears by the printed statement at the time." Croswell sees nothmg wrong 
in thus collecting his old friend's private, personal letters, and pubhshmg them 
to his injury. How can he reconcile this with his abuse ot me last Sept. 
and Oct. ? 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



Folk's Pledqes.— Verplanck's Resolution.— Michael Hoffman— the Naval Officer 
—a Sinecure— Duties Political— Luck in getting Places— Votes in Congress- 
Pet Bank Loans— Herkimer Bank Stock— Hoffman and Young— Relations- 
A vote for Barker.— Executive Patronage.— Natal Office no Check.— Millions 
j^ost.— Tke Merchants-' Entries.— Alderman Purdy —Woodbury and Swart- 
wout.— Polk's Choice.— Bonds hoio hit.— Noah's Grief .—Folk denounces the 
Sub Treasury.— Wilde, Gorham, and Binr.ey, on the Pets.— Polk prevents 
Bank Inquiry.— Adams on Taney.— The General Scramble. 
CoL PoLK was one of the original supporters of Jackson -and professes 
hostility to a high tariff for protection, to a national bank, to distributing a surplus 
of U S revenue monies among the states, and to internal improvements made 
with ■ funds at the disposal of Congress. He is said to be friendly to an 
amendment of the constitution so that the people themselves might directly elect 
their presidents, and to the one term principle. He was warm in favor ot 1 exan 
annexation, with slavery, and the slaveholding interest ot the south believe that 

Usurylawmayha'^ arisen Itly from 'a desire to withdraw ^^J^^J^,'!:^^^^^^ 
lend them to farmers at a high rate of interest, upon mortgage. He puichased Hock, at j 
^^"^c a preii, in the Oswego bank. It failed The lobby agents oi t^.f J-T ^l^-Jf/ 
Pncern, Sie Seneca C^nty Bank^p SerKi|.r C ail, ^^^^^ -oclj. 



^^l^o^:^!:::rrk:^'^^:^^^^^^^^ra a- the oW f^eljesu^r Bank^ worth 
£ ? nn if °t ^50 a share In the Saratoga (Wateiford) Bank he had fe5,000, his wile's fro- 
ilnvll Ucmiw^ ani bought at 12 jer^eem. rremiuin. This was sold out m part or the 
Kie at M premium He took S3,odo stock in the Lockport Bank-it broke down-lie sold 
hislockat80pcr?m dTscount, and voted to repeal the charter. He was not a borrower m 
tanks bufa real banSr-and when the banks stupt payment in 183G, he was ^"^^" b' e"oigh 
Donivs uuL ciieai uaiuv irrr,ir^<^ Mnvfv .ind the Van Burcn clique, 



rScf Sc^ri^ r '^;:: a,;:^ r;;co;d i;i;;;.^ga^^t Marcy and W ^^n Bugn^ciicju^ 
who were for giving their knavery a legislative proieclion. ^ct Irom I8l3 to 182. while 
S^w^s vo ingfor pet charters, when from party apulicants, he had the suspen .on o 1814, 
and the warning o Clinton, Tompkins, and the latWrs ot democracy daily betoie his 630., 



'"V^ .r ^S5.000 in the City Bank, Alb.ny, and large -ounts in^the Utica and^ 
ihree or four others. His connection with such a person as ^" f yj^^f;^''',^^^'^ -^"^^^^ 
orcuDies no very high place in llic code of bank morality, is against h m So also is his \o e 
Sfavorot gi;^ng fo I new incumbent the oliice of state printer, w Inch the patron of h^ 
avShavfJo fongandso shamefully abused The a^h-ents of Wa kcr^ P^^^^^^ 
and Mnrcv, fearing that Cassidy's backers might be opposed to the r ^leclara Hon of depend 
en«, iie united in>tting dowtl the corrupt machinery ^^ey can no longer contro 

On the iCth of May, 1833, Col. Y. dehned his position in the Albanj Atlas, m uiest a\oi-u. . 

..The Demurrauc P .ny, wah Mr. V.. B, k.s ..its |'-<t; --'--[;':' ^^^ ^iS'h^c'ul^.'lo ,mvl^ S 

" rlbiilrirv, ilv lot.'-, aliin .mun ry, Hnd iIm> 1. .r<l cut r ^''^ '^''^''^/itritr/ I nve siVcl t '^^ pcr'o.l l.'.ii.'d U a. 

" c .rroct iind (lis urinc.|il.s Fuunrt, s.n.l anticiptump ii polilical rrMirrircUnii, I '-'^c bi.ic., J '• \ 1»- ' ^^ , 

" L would i.ot l,u left at 111- bntt..m, bm woi.l.l rise willr .he (.arty tern und.i '.'« '''"' '''";:^^ Van bVren as 
•• HndTp" mbr... n. When .sK«d .ny oplMlon. I I.Hve unitbr...ly "''P^f »«/,,,'"'' .Jlt'"^^^^^^^ n,e offict 

« ih°nSt PrceWeniial caudiduie : and in my etii.natiop no man con be found better .lualitica lur iiie oract 



POLK, THE PETS, AND MICHAEL HOFFMAN. 131 

they have in him a steady friend. He professed to be friendly to equal rights 
for adopted citizens ;* but tkat, lilie some others of his previous opinions, may 
have been held temporarily. He was pledged at Baltimore, before his election^ 
to hold to the whole of Oregon, but he otiered England afterwards to deduct 
from that whole b\ degrees of N. latitude. In Dec, 1827, he was placed on 
the committee of foreign atfairs in the House of Representatives, and five years 
thereafter (Dec, 1832), judiciously chosen by the Van Buren pet bank and land 
jobbino- interest as their leading advocate on the committee of ways and means. 
At that session, the directors of the U. S. Bank were examined on oath by that 
committee, and Verplanck, their chairman, presented a majority report. Mar. 1, 
1833 with a resolve, " That the government deposites may, in the opinion of 
this House, be safely continued in the Bank of the U. S." Polk presented a 
counter report from the minority, but all the members save 46, voted for Ver- 
planck's resolution, in the teeth of which, Duane, six months after, was ex- 
pected to have removed the public monies to peculiar institutions more favored 
by those in power. Of the 46 were W. G. Angel, S. Beardsley, Joseph Bouck, 
jMichael Holfman, Henry Horn, Henry Hubbard, John Y. Mason, C. P. White, 
and J.K. Polk. 



* A bill h^id be°n sent to the H. of R. from the Senatn, for granting a township of land to a bo<ly of poor 
exiles fniin P.pland, whore they hi I struSL'leil for free.lom On the iOth of .)iine, 1834. la^t diyi.f session, 
Pinckney moved to Iny it nn ihe inble. th;it \*. to crush it. Among the ye;n were J im«-< K. Polk, his Attorney 
Gfiiertl, .loliii Y. MMson, his P. M. (;.. C^ive Johnson, with H. Benrdsey, whom J. V. Hnren ridicules. The 
»ut'icr:u Nicliolis, h id he hid n vote, would h ive b-.'en on the same side. Aniini; the noBS were J. Q. Adams, 
E. Everef. M. Fdlmure, R. H. Gillett, imdley Selden, Aariiu Ward, and C. C. Ciiiibieleiis;. Whiie and Law- 
rence did not vole. 

t MlctiAKL Hoffman of Hi-rkiiner, who is Indebted to his friend James K. Polk, for the influential office, I 
niny siy .-.iiietnrf, ol' .Nnv:il OfR.:er of the I'ort of Sew York ; a berth, which, like the Russian emOaxsy. hns 
been lone ineliil to the e.xecutive as a means of rewtrduig political services, without relerence to the penbriii- 
ancp of H?iy partirnl.ir diilie'^ ; is now l:ir lulvaiict-d in years. Hi.s pl.ice has bcrn worth, In fees, fines, saliry 
and perquisite^, over $16,01)0 a year, as w:is the Suive\or's situ ition, now held by Hiirdy nut it is possible th it 
a bill before Concress may efftct a reduction. Yet it is truly m;irvvll<>iH how easily otficinl iifople. in tlie chief 
situation-, ronliUe to mve a sort of mystical interpret ,tion I.i biws !.pp,renily plain and simpif— their object 
while in. is to fill their pockets— and Woodbury, SwHrtwoiit. Vmu Buren, Iloyl, &c., are proofs that no profes- 
sion ofulirH deiiincr.icy Ciin ensure nn efleclivtj check on officiMl profligacy. I presumt; th it it is well under- 
stiKid thm Hortiuan holds on. conditioned ill it be shill devote his politic il tHlents ami experience to tbe jiond 
of til • Rege-icy leaders, whose d;m>cricy consists in luiyins over and ret lining prominent politic il men. through 
'the .-pod",' liimntirully diviiled amon/it'tliem f>r iheir servicm in deceivini; and deluding a people wh •, if 
themselves lielieve in the doctrines of Tionixs Jeffei-sou, have too often followed in tbe footstep.* of certiin 
urtful and designing p diucian- wh i d mot. 

Judije H (if inn is a lawyer, by In le a p ilitician, has the rsputation of bsinj very strict on " constituional 
qutjilions"— very clever ui gelling lliom uo— ihviy- lookins in Ihfl direction of iiltr i-dem icracy— ever rowing 
his boat towirds Pl.ace, Power, and Officiil PUmder. For two year? he was a ilistrict nttorney; nnd for 
four he dispen ed English law as a .-alititule for American ju-lice in the capiciiy of fir-t judge of the Countv 
of Herkimer. An additional Canal C.nisniwsioner was said to be Witited. ju>t in lime to secure to Judge Hoff- 
inan, fir two years, a seat at the ciiial board, with a handsome income. The atftirs of the nation required 
to be set to righu. and Congress cnulJ not get thn J^icj/i!) properly regul ited without nt 1 -ast one Admiral ; in 
due time, therefore, 'the pirty' sent Judge Ho.f.mn for six or eight yeirs, to the Home of K'p.-e«entatlve». 
in the pure and moral, atiiiospliere of Washington, where eight doU.irs perd ly, with mileige honeitly measured, 
Dallas fashion, libenl presents voted from Jonathan's Exchequer, by pilriots to themselves, and secret 
promise.s. of office thereafter, if they vote right, has reconciled m my a hot reformer to the discipline of a parly 
leader. His recorded voles then, present a droll contrast when taken into view w.lh his vau anxiety 71010 for n 
state convention, to affiiJ mire ch'cks on our money-horrowni, saiiity fund -b ink chtrlering m.ijorities, for 
Ixith of which, when at Albany, he entertained, as he siid. a truly virtuous abhorrence. 

'i'he nation, through Congress, in 1810. ^old to the United States B ink. the rioht to become the Treasury 
of the Union for twenty years— took $1,503 009 in cash from stockholders, in payment for this privilege — and 
the fSiipreme Court Judges of the Union declared the transaction to be con-stitutioiial ; whether it w.as t-o or not, 
nothing could be a greater violntion of the puiilic fiilh than to take the U. S Bink money as a consideration 
for a privilege, and then lend out the whole national income to a batch of trading politicians, under the pretext 
of depo iting it in the more fivored chartered and unchecked b inking monopolies of Ihe Van Buren school for 
better security. In March, 1833, Mr. Polk joined Michael HotTman and Campbell P. White in negitiving Ver- 
planck's motion that the money of the nation was sate in the Biiik of the United Stales. In that same year, 
Mr UofTman might also be found (as Mordccai M. Noah told him) liberally partaking of the unclean drippings 
of bank legislation and special charters. His county (Herkimer) had to be managed by a b.ink in the hands of 
the faithful. Mr. Hotfmnn had one hundred shares (say SIO.OOO) apportioned to him, with other 80 shares to 
his friend Col. Samuel Young— lOU more went to A. Looniis— 100 to A. Mann, M. C, ami lOlt to Uudley Burwill. 
" Under cover (said Noah, in his Star of October, 1834,) of charging the U. S. B ink with bribery, the grossest 
corruptions are c;irricd on in this state— the very legislator who votes on a bank bill receives the assurance of 
pay in advance." Honest MichaeU'it appears,'was not forgotten. After doing his best to lend forty millions of 
the money of the Union to the pet banks of party leaders and gambling bank directors with no security at all- 
after partaking liberally of chartered bank stocJk— after violating the oblig::ition of contracts to '.he U. S. Bank, 
and aiding in the anti-bank cry of Martin Van Buren and his decoy-ducks, who, under the safety (! ') fund sys- 
tem, chajfiered, from 1829 to 1S37, banks oa the special privilege principle, VFith some 30 raillions of nominal, 



132 Hoffman's sinecure, principles and policy. 

Pollc could be depended on— Stevenson was Speaker, and looking up to 
Jackson for a more lucrative office— the latter placed the former at the head of 
the ways and means in Dec, 1833, to oppose the U. S. Bank and Sub Treasury, 
and uphold Kendall and the political scheme of the Treasury banks. All this 

but far less of real, capital in this state— after this, Mr. Hoffinan sat down in March, 1843, to write to Col. 
Youne, that he hail just heard of his effort to save one plaiih from the wreck of t!ie constitution— pullBd him- 




Michigan, resting lor two or tnree sessions in wa n.m=c ui .T.=oc..i^.j, ... ,^.^...y . „. ... ....5... _--- .. . 

«)(l,OUO to SIG.UOO a year priz.e of the Naval Office, in the lucky state lottery of 1 honias Ritchie and James K. 
I'olk. Who can deny the fact, that the Admiral has acted on the principle of rotation in office 1 Out of one 
fat berth he goes into another, tumbling out both friends and foes, when in his .wa>% but a ways piping some 
democratic tvuie always ridin- some popular hobby. To-day corresponding with Byrdsall " as Pies dent ot 
the association lor Constitutional Refonn "-to morrow sanctioning Byrdsall's removal from a $loUO sinecure 
in the Custom House, because he was too Calhounish ! j •.. 1 ■ 1 ^.^ ,n ^i.>==o« h.u 

That the .\iiti-Kent party complained of real and serious wrongs is now admit ed by almost all classes, but 
Hoffman, like Silas Wright, was slow to perceive the pith of their complaints. He voted, in 1826, with Butler, 
"0 renew the Mechanics and Farmers' and other unchecked bank charters, but they could not get enough to 
loin them. Van Buien, Olcott and the party chiefs next year got np the ba fety !• und nnpostiire, and pla>ed 
iheir parti so artfully that it took. I think that Hoffman voted against the bill U. elect Canal (ommissioners 
by the people, and against the bill to destroy the State Prison Monopoly. In the distribution of the patronage 
of his department he takes his cue from Washington, to suit the party interests. miiBntnr thrn- 

When Hofihian entered the Custom House, it was asserted that the pretended check on the Col ector thro 
the naval office, a very expensive and useless farce, as now and lor many years past performed by v^eeran 
actors (this much the Evening Post admits,) would in his hands become a reul one-but I doubted. 1 he legis- 
d- who voted ;^ Hoffinan did, for George P. Barker to be our Attorney General, after the Pi^liljc c^^posure of he 
frauds of the Bullalo City Bank, (sayinc nothing of his votes in favor ot all that Hofliiian ca Is corrupt in the 
session of 1836,) was a meet yoke fellow to Cornelius W. Lawrence, in their othcial duties ol checks upon the 
monev operations of the Custom House of New York. , , , 1 ■ • , i,., 

Mr. Polk showed the sincerity of his respect for his friend Andrew Jackson's memory and principle, by 
choosinr.- lor collector here, a pet-bank president, whose conduct in failing to pay the public cash to the publ c 
creditors, when his bank had been trusled with plenty of it, had disgraced 'l'V"'T';;r.Ar'ro\nmmlllr the 
frail concern. He showed equal, consistency at least, in selecting as our .Naval Othcer, or comptrol er, the 
Hoffman who liad voted against Major Dave/.ac's motion in Assembly, for refunding to the old hero, before his 
death, his New Orleans fine and the costs thereof, ^. . , i „„„„«» ,<,r„o 

Far be it from me to undervalue a Convention or nofrman's stipport of it-tho people ''f ;^,f;"°f, j'j^/^Xn.^ 
sentatives to it, and check their action, too, if a majority of them should prove indis;creet-but I dislike L%ening 
Post homUies on slate reform emanating f^m the Custom House desk of a ,«lfi,000 f'"'-''^"''^''/::' end'uid effi 
own department there in as bad a condition as he found it, uhile he has the power '" ^^-'f. ' "f 'f '^''Ivstem 
cient for the public service. He had no ear for a specie treasury in 1833-'-!, but was ready tor the cash sj s em 




iiiee 

Ezecutioe Patronage, fi 



?^S ;;;;wtv;;; ;i"a P^:id;;rPolk hai ;^c^^X^ ...erits, and g^en mm^hroop's old place and in- 




examiners at Washington, and deputies to do the business, it costs the nation $bJ,t)UU a )<^ai. 

It has been shown, that in the two last months of Mr. Hoyt's term, entries amounting t..S63 00J were stolei^ 
da ly as presented, from the Cashier's otiice, before the clerks had ^^e" or entered then, on Collectosbook^^^^^^^^ 
the duDlicates of the^e same entries were just as punctually stolen from the Naval Ufhcer s othce before he 

'nitlfderk: had entered them on their record, oJ check-books, and that, had ""' -■ j-c'-i-;' by" he lYalld "o'f 
and a whig secretary e.^amined into the matter, Jesse Hoyt would have been JG3,000 che 1 I'e Irauds o 
January and February, IHU, be the thief who he may. 1 believe, that, altliough !ii,b3,OlO «cre m this wa> all 
but pick 
wc have 
ways, ui 
the parties iciU omit to menUoii ? I blame no one— proiess u. susi.cu. ..,j .,..=—..... .y 77;\°--:r";, :-" i --- p„,„ 

scribed there must be a check. How is it now 1 The entry, in dup icale is handed " '\,^^,^'^' "*^.'^.^"j ^ 
clerk, who examines it, another clerk folds it, a third clerk endorses it. The endorser hands ''. « />" ^^ ^ .'o ''^. 
Reeister whose duty it is to enter it on his great book, and he does so, but not till nex« day, alter ten o cloclv , 
and' as 'tirinrndle^of entries of any one day is not locked up, ^^f^-^yrZ^^r^^^ ,'en or more 
noihinff would be more easy as far as the Nava Othce is concerned, than to abstract any two, ten, or more 
en r^ s' rcordmg "uho slz'e'am/nttality of the .laily bundle ; and if" matters should at a future J-^e - "jade 
to correspond in the Cashier's office, wholesale frauds are as easy "ff *;""'' '=;l''''''"'"^'t'';''r "^ ' f^' "^J 
thev oer Ibrmed them in Jesse's lime. The truth is, the day's record should bo completed d.iy by daj, signed 

.yYlcl'fCtl'hhnseiraf'er personal examination, before he leaves the office, ami "^J'^V ''-'^^^^--,^J'J^^^^^^ 
to the U. S. Treasury. The entry should be recorded on the book, imiiicdiately alter the merchant or nis cierK 
hands it in— and this could bo done with ease. 





(Jlfice unlit persons, because they are serviceable tools as poll 
chairmanship, with the duties of the siirveyorsliip of the Customs 7 



POLK, WOOBBURY, 0*SULLIVaN AND THE PETS. 133 

he did, with spirit and energy. Let the Democratic Review, in its confessional 
numbers after Van Buren's defeat, explain to the millions the results of the ex- 
ertions made in 1834, '5, and '6, by Kendall, Whitney, Van Buren, and J. K. 
Polk. Speaking of Van Buren & Co.'s failure in 1840, the Review says : 

" Nor can we lay our hands on our hearts and say, on honor bright that it was entirely un- 
deserved on our own part, after all. We had not been-no party could have beeii-so long in 
power especially under all the existing circumstances, without having contracted sundry 
sins both of omission and cornmission-and with the same certainty mat drags the shadow 
after the substance, does an inevitable retribution, to parties as to men, loUow every fault and 
everv folly they are ever guilty of. One great blunder, indeed, of the Pet Bank experiment, 
entailed a lona- series of consequences which made it eventually one of the heaviest of the 
wei-hts that bSre us down— a measure adopted at the express rejection of that veryone which at a 
late? dav we so iustly hailed with delight, when brought forward under difierent party auspices. 
We meant well to be sure, in that most ill-starred of experiments— and it was at any rate better 
than the alternative of the other side, the re-charter of Mr. Biddle, but good intent is no excuse, 
to the inexorable justice of the providence of events, for great political errors, p^ And when 
we remember all the practical mischief we did, stimulating the expansion ot the currency 
thi-ou<^h the distribution of the vast accumulated deposites among the banks— without even a 
char-e of interest to thei\i, and at one time an official encouragement to them to apply them 
liberallv to the ' relief of the community— when we remember the prophetic warning.s from 
tire opposition of the very consequences which indeed were not slow to develope themselves— 
what light have we to complain if we had ourselves to swallow a very bitter dose ol retribu- 
tion for our fatal error f 

I am persuaded that no impartial, well informed individual can be found who 
would hesitate; after inquiry, to blame Levi Woodbury, Sec. of the Treas., for 
his neo-lect of duty in the case of* Swartwout, who had embezzled some 
$1,250',000 from the New York Custom House, long before that lazy, or worse 
than lazy, functionary thought fit to announce his knowledge of the delinquency. 
A brief account of S.'s defalcation may be seen by reference to the index ot my 
Lives of Hoyt and Butler— and it is worthy of remark that President Polk, 
knowing Woodbury's course in that and other matters, hastened to give him a 
life lease on the bench of the Supreme Court—and followed up that appointment 
by the nomination of the most intolerant lawyer towards citizens by choice, and 
not by chance, that he could find in Pennsylvania, or the Union, to a similar 
hio-h station.! Mr. Polk's clumsy interference with the deposites was the indi- 

* Until 1834 Swavtwout hsd embezzled^ but little of the public money. When the deposits were seized, he 
seeu>s to have taken a leaf out of Van Buren's book. On the loth of November 1838, Woodbury wrote to 
Ho ",hhuin'thiU the clerks who knew and concealed Swartwout's misconduct, ought to be removed, luo 
S after dgden the cashier, and Phillips [Noah's relative] the assistant res.gnedthe.r sUuat.on^. Hanes^ 
Noah in his Evenin" Star, grieved aloud at Swartwout's resignation and French tour. 1 here are tew men 
who l^lve an importont situation with more of the public approbation than Mr. Swartwouf'-said Noah. Wood- 
burv was mere W to public pilferers. For e.xample, " Harris, the receiver at Columbus, Mississippi, was a 
noKn rinlrdan7deLut^^^ office Iwo years, in full knowledge of the department untU he 

ower S160 000 So Wise teHs us, throus^hthe Globe In August, 1835, Woodbury tells Harris that he is a 
def^nlttr-again in October-and so on till September, 183b, xvhen the fellow proposes to resign alter having 
bee 1 wo and a half years a heavy defaulter ! A Mr. G. D. Boyd succeeded Harris, and was " in emperate, ' a 
land speculator, like Butler, and resigned a defaulter, m^ny thousand dollars in arrear, in August, 1837. John 
Davis applied ne.xt, as " a warm friend of the administration." 

t Polk and the Banks.— When Polk reported, in March, 1834, from the majority of his 
committee of Ways and Means, for seizing the revenue, using it to corrupt the banks, influ- 
ence the elections, and uphold " the party," a minority report was presented, on the 4th, by K. 
H Wilde Benj. Gorham, and Horace Binney. They remind Congress, that a partnership 
of different corporations for profit and loss, or mutual guaranty, with independent boards ot 
direction was a strange contrivance to secure the stockholder and regulate the currency--that 
Polk Wright and Kendall's scheme had been tried and tailed, and would fail again— that il 
Polk' and his friends were correct in quoting the maxim that " the borrower is servant to the 
lender " the banks borrowing the public money would be slaves to Jackson and his cabinet 
—that if their other maxim. " that he who controls a bank, controls the debtors ot the bank' 
h^ld good, the deposites had been placed in banks whom Jackson's advisers intended to con- 
trol, through these slave banks of theirs— that the scheme would derange the currency, which 
is the measure of the value of every man's property, of his contracts, of indemnity lor break- 
ing them, and of the public revenue— that a deranged currency makes laws, verdicts, promi- 
ses and decrees of courts speak the language of deceit and falsehood, gives Iraud a premium, 



134 POLK AND BLAIR CONDEMN THE SUB-TREASURV' 

rect cause of the loss to the country of $646,754 paid him, as the cashiers of 
his choice, for bonds. When Polk, Kendall, Van Buren, and Lawrence, united 



and strips honest labor of its scanty earnings, pajnns; it in worthless or depreciated rags, un- 
der pretence that they are as good as gold — that doiibt and uncertainty were deeply injuring 
the business of the merchant and manufacturer — that if the U. S. Bank was not to be rechar- 
tered, some better plan ought to be proposed to Congress, for as to Polk and Wright's pet 
scheme, it was the merest delusion, because the banks selected, and the vast number that 
would arise like mushrooms, would only promote the disorder. The state banks wanted a 
regulator — a good currency was hopeless if tlie U. S. Bank, as a check, was removed, and no 
other substituted than the party politician's orders whom circumstances might place at the 
head of the treasury — that the bank had been accused of paying money to printers, but, when 
traduced by the executive power, by many presses, and by speculators in Congress, was it not 
the duty of her directors to appeal to lacts, where the public were so deeply interested in the 
result 1 — that the framers of the constitution had provided the Supreme Court for the trial of 
aught done by the bank that was wrong, with the penalty of loss of charter if shown to be for- 
feited and that the attorney general might prosecute, and tlie bank be heard in defence before 
the country, which WJUld be a better, more manly course, than continued slander and party 
abuse to niystify the issues, delude the millions, and end in making the fortunes of bad men, 
to the injury and rain of thousands who would be made to believe that they had been wronged 
by those most deeply interested in the cause of equal justice. 

' The Apostle Paul, had he been on earth, would not have convinced Polk, Wright, Van Bu- 
ren, Butljr, Kendall, Whitney, Lawence, Cambreleng, Tallmadge, Marcy, Taney, and their 
confederates, that anything less than the use of the pitblic purse — its plunder — could benefit the 
public. The party were not yet ready for the Sub Treasury, and therefore it was that in that 
year, Polk denounced it in the following plain terms : 

" Between the respmsiMt,.'ti/ of a public receiver and bank corporations as banks do exist, and 
" are likely to exist under State authority, the latter, itpan the ground of safety to the public, are to 
" be preferred^ Da.aks, when they are safe, recommend tlwinselvcsto the service of the Treasury for 
" other' reasons. The increased facility they possess over individual collectors and receivers, in 
" m.iking transfers of public money to distant points, for disbursements, w- thout charge to thepud- 
" lie. indeed, this is a service which individuals, to the extent of our large revenues, could not 
" perform. Whilst the deposite is in Bank, the bank may use it, keeping itself at the same time 
" ready to pay when demanded, and it is not withdrawn from the general circulation — as so 
" much money hoarded and withdrawn from the use of the community. In the hands of receivers, 
" th;y must either hoard it by keeping it locked up in a strong box, or use it at their own risk 
" ia private speculation or trade. This temporary use of monjy on deposite in a bank, consti- 
" tutes tlie only compensation which the bank receives for the risk of keeping it, and forthe ser- 
" vice it pcrfjrms. W re.eioers bo employed, they can perform no other ser\'ice tlian to keep the 
" monev, and must be paid a compensation from the Treasury." 

Blair, of cjirse, tojA the same ground in the Globe. He declared "(hat (he Independe^it 
Treasicry is disorganizing and revolutionary, and subversive of the fundamental principles of 
o ir government, and oi' its entire practice irora 1798 down to this day, and that it is as palpa- 
ble as the sun that the effjci of the scheme would be to bring the public treasury much nearer 
the actual custody and control of the President, and expose it to be plundered by a hundred 
hands, where one under the late system could not reach it. in such event we should feel that 
the piop'.e had just cause tor alarih, and ought to give their most watchful attention to such an 
eflbrt to enlarge execitive power, and put in its hand the means of corruption." 

On the l3th of June, 1831, the Senate sent for concurrence to the Plotisc of Representatives, 
a resolution it had agreed to, in opposition to the treasury banks, that the public treasure ought 
to hz left with the U. S. Bank and its branches. Polk moved to give it the sro-by. Yeas, Joel 

B. Suth3rlanl, R. 11. Gillct, J. Cramer, A. Vanderpo;!, H. Hubbard, Folk, Cambreleng, 
White, &c. Nays, J. a. Adams, Dixon FI. Lewis, Dudley Selden, H. A. Wise, W. Slade, 
M. Fillmore, E. l:^verett, Levi Lincoln, &c. Where was Collector Lawrence 1 

April 4, 1831, Polk's resolve " that the state banks ought to be continued as the places of de- 
posit for the public money," Congress prescribing the mode of selection and the securities 
(never done), was cairied iri the House of Representatives, 117 to 112. Yeas, Polk, Cambre- 
leng, Cramer, Beardsley, Bockee, Gillet, Hamer, Hubbard, Richard M. and Cave Johnson, 

C. W. Lawrence, Mann, J. Y. Mason, Joel B. Suthei land, Vanderpocl, &c. Nays, Adams 
(J. Q,.), Selden, Slade, McDuflie, F. Whittlesey, Everett, Lincoln, &c. 

March 17, 1831, Gorham presented a memorial from many influential and highly respectable 
inhabitants of Boston, for the incorporation of a national bank, and the restoration of the depo- 
sits. Polk, Bynum, Cave Johnson, Beardsley, VanJerpoel, Gillet, Ma.son, &.C., argued and 
voted against allowing the names of the petitioners to be printed with the memorial. This 
time C. W. Lawrence left his leader, and with Sutherland, Selden, Wise, Adams, &c., went 
for allowing the people to see who the petitioners were. 



POLK QUASHES ENQUIRY— BINNEY PROPHESIES. 135 

in driving the able and intrepid Duane, whom Jackson could neither bend nor 
bribe, from the Treasury, Taney, four days after his appointment, ordered the 
President of the U. S. Bank to deliver up the bonds given by the merchants of 
Philadelphia, for duties, to the Collector there. It is presumed that a like order 
was (riven in New York ; and the consequence was, that instead of the branch 
bank here being a check, and a safe depository for the bonds, till paid at the 
bank, they were placed in the hands of Svvartwout and his reckless subalterns 
to manage as they thought fit. The result is matter of history.* 

* It has oflen b3en found, on examining the affairs of a broken bank, that certain of its 
officers and directors owe it far larger sums than the stock they hold. These debts they con- 
trive to pay with the notes of their insolvent institution, at ■par, buying them in the market 
for 25 to 5J cents per dollar, and thus gaining by the failure. On the 7th of June, 1834, Mr. 
Adams proposed a resolve requesting the names of the Presidents, Cashiers, Directors, Stock- 
holders, and Solicitors, of all the banks that had been selected by Roger Taney, as treasmy 
banks, when the U. S. Bank was discarded — the amount of stock held by each stockholder — 
and the amount of debt due by each director, cashier, and president of each pet bank, to the 
bank, at the time when it got the public treasure, and at this time. This would have shown 
whether the banks were in the hani-s of borrowing speculators, whether they had borrowed 
oat the public monies, and whether they had power over the banks without having a real 
interest in their gjoJ management. Nevins's letter to Hoyt, page 189, explains in part their 
schemes. Mr. A lams showed that it was not unusual for a favorite to be allowed to .subscribe 
for SJJ,J3J of stock, be elected a president or director, and never pay one cent into the bank 
coTers; bat, whin he could, borrow the credit ot" the bank and ottiei men's deposits. Mr. 
Polk screened the pets, opposed all information, and for the purpose of crushing inquiry, 
moved an amendment about the U. S. Bank, which had no deposits at all to lend to any one. 
Cambreleng, too, was opposed to inquiry, of course. Coulter said that secretary Taney had 
not forgotten his own interest in selecting the pet.s — that he, Taney, was the Attorney for one 
of them (the Union Bank, Maryland) that he was also a large stockholder, and had moved 
the depo.sits so as to give new value to his own bank shares, and increase his dividend.s — 
that this conduct was a violation of the law — and that Taney was not alone in such works, 
as the returns would show. Mr. Adams was very sarr astic. He suggested to Polk, as 
chairman of tha ways and means, to add to the precedents with which he had befogged the 
House, by proposing that it be 

?)C?° " Resolved, th it the thunks of this hou^e be piven to Roger B. Taney, secretary of the treasury, for hlg 
^jiCr" ^"^'<^ '""J DISINTERESTED (iMtriotisiii in translerrinj; the \i>e of the jmldic fiiu.l< fruin the 15 ink of the 
^fCT" U'liteil Stales, wiitre iha/ were protitiiLile lo the people, to the Umon Biiik of UdUiaiiire, where they 
{)Q= were protilable to himself." 

The guilty usurers were in the majority, but all was kept dark. Campbell P. White bor- 
rowed ^^/t.'V$'l72,0J0— the Butlers .^30,000— J. G. Coster S3i3J,OOa— James M'Bride^TtJ.OOO; all 
this and inuch more out of the Manhattan. Ofcour.se the patriot, White, wanted no inquiry. 
Polk was the leader of the greedy usurers in their "general scramb.e." Is it tiius 
we are to account for his patronage of B. F. Butler 1 On the 13tb the resolution was 
again debated, and Mr. Miller moved to dispose of it, as delay would quash inquiry. Polk 
said no — the usurers were in his majority, and inquiry was thus stifled till the general bank- 
ruptcy of 1837-8, told a sad tale, a day too late. 

Horace Binney of Philadelphia, in his speech against Van Buren's Pet Banks, in the debate in 
Congress, January 9th, 1834, had clearly foretold these results. I quote his remarks verbatim. 

"Sir, the project astonishes me. It is lo bring a second time, upon this land, the curse of an 
unregulated, uncontrolled, State Bank paper currency. We are again to see the chama, which 
already, in the course of the present century, has passed before us, and closed in ruin. If the 
project shall be successful, we are again to see these paper-missiles shooting in every direction 
through the country ; a derangement of all value; a depreciated circulation ; a su-spension of 
specie payments; "then a further extension of the same detestable paper; a still greater depre- 
ciation ; with failures of traders and failiKes of Banks, irt its train ; lo arrive, at last, at the same 
point from whence we departed in 1817. Suffer me lo recall to the recollection of the House a 
few of the mure striking events of that day. The first Bank of the U. States expired in March, 
1811. Between the 1st of January, 181 1, and the close of the year 1814, more than one hundred 
new Banks were established to supply this more uniform and belter currency. For ten millions 
of capital called in by that Bank, twenty millions of capital, so called, was invested in these. In 
the place of five-and-a-half millions, about the amount of circulation in notes of that Bank 
withdrawn, twenty-two millions were pushed out. Then came a suspension of specie pay- 
ments, in August and September, 1814. As an immediate consequence of this suspension, 
the circulation of the country, in the course of lilteen months, increased fil'ty per cent,. 



13f6 THE GRAND CATASTROPHE OF 1837. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

The very name of a politician or statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred ; it has always 
connected with it the ideas of treachery, cruelly, fraud and tyraimy ; and those \VTiters who 
have faithfully unveiled the mysteries of state Ircemasonry, have ever been held in general 
detestation fur even knowing so peneclly a theory so detestable, 

Burke's Vindication or Natural Society. 

The Catastrophe^ 1S37. — Partnership Law. — The Pels versus the Subtreasury. 
— Free Buvking. — Kendall and the Post — Marcy''s Reslrainimg Law. — Clay 
on the Bunks. — The Brokers^ Batiks. — Jackson, Blair, Folk and Ritchie 
against the Subtreasury. — Calhoun for a Bank, in 1834. — Jackson Alvney., 
all hard. — Gold, nil gold. — Silas IVright and the Soulless Existences. — 
Harrison on Currency. — Tebbett'^s $800U Vault. — Hnyt and Allen working 
out the Act. — Flagg''s Practice. — Van Buren''s Specie Mixture. — Peel on 
Paper. — English Banking. — The Knaves^ League. — JJoyt, McNulty, tj-c, 
above all Law. — Bennett Explains. — Knowledge is Power. — Canibreleng., 
Webb, 6)C. — Walker and his Pets. — Corcoran ^" KigtiS. — Four Hundred 
Stockjobbers Sportiiig with Uncle Sam''s Strong Box. —McDuffie^s Notions. 

England's republican poet, John Milton, thus records in his ' Paradise Lost,' 
the lamenlaiions of the eldest of human kind : " JNow I perceive Peace to 
corrupt, no less than War to waste." Addison, one of her ablest M'hig states- 
men, frankly declares his opinion, that " The waste of War is not, in its final 
consequences, so injurious as the luxuries and corruptions of Peace." John 
Quincy Adams, with still later experience, and certainly very superior powers 
of observation, approvingly quotes Milton ; and assigns " the abuse of credit, 
and the unrestrained pursuit of inordinate wealth, especially by the agency 
of banks," as the proximate causes of the great catastrophe of 1837.* 

or from Ibrty-livc to sixty-eight millions of dollars; and the fruit of this more uniform curren- 
cy was the fa'durc uf innuincrable traders, mechanics, even farmers ; of one hundred and sixty- 
five banks, with capitals amounting to S:30,000,000 ; and a loss to the United Slates, alone, in 
the negocialion of her loans, and in the receipt of bankrupt paper, lo an amount exceeding four 
millions of dollars. * * * Does Kentucky wish to see the return of those days 1 I trust in 
God it will be defeated, that the poor men and laborers in the land may resist it, for it is a 
scheme to get from every one of them a dollar's worth of labor for fifty cents, and to make fraud 
the currency of the country as much as paper." 

Martin Van Buren and his friend Butler saw it all just as clearly as Binney, but his follow- 
ers would leave if not gorged with plunder, and he satiated even avarice itself. As early as 
1835, Jackson and Van Buren saved appearances by abusing the banks and thus weakening 
their' credit; and in Holland's Life, pruned that year at Hartford, banks and paper money 
are unsparingly vilified. When they fell with a crash, Van Buren started the sub-treasury, 
while his instruments denounced tlie banks he himself liad endowed and made. 

* The Catasthophk. — As early as October, 183(), tiie Salcty Fund Bank system was leady to 
blow up. Van Buren and Jackson's pel banks, with the hundreds of other bank.s created all 
over the Union, had increased the circulation of paper as money beyond all precedent. Every- 
thing' that w;is for sale rose in price — everybody iikcsf to sell in a dear market, and therefore 
many millions of dollars worth of foreign merchandia" was imported in 1835 and 183C., beyond 
the average of more frugal years — vast imports iirought a great revenue — the revenue was 
handed over to the pels lor safe Iceeping, and by tiiem lent to their managers, to speculate in 
lands and lots, or for the accommodation oi' tlie merchants at 1*2 to 50 per cent, interest. The 
public land sales rose from <imc ur two millions to 15 or X!0 in a year — the states lent their credit 
to banks, in bonds payable with interest, they began extensive canals, railroads and other im- 
provements, often without system, and wilh mean, dishonest para.sites as ilieir agents — the banks 
disposed of their capitals lor fancy stocks, Texas scrip, and unsaleable property — every body 
tooK credit, at home and abroad — jTOvisions rose — millions worlh of protluce, potatoe&, &c. 
were, imported, lor although we had land, we hail not leisure lo cultivate it. The country was 



FLAGG AND HIS SAFETY FUND AND FREE BANKS. 137 

As a security, not only to bankers, but also to merchants, manufacturers, and, 
in short, all persons who go into partnership in trade «/ f ^^)'"g^' ^I^^P^^.f^ 
revision and consolidation of the partnership laws would be invaluable to this 
community. At present they are the crude provisions of the common law^ 
and many capitalists are alarmed at the bare idea ot an unhmUed partnership* 

lii^d with an overstrained, distempered energy, ill directed. The national governinent was 
nS?f debt L^SngrLs had orde J many --11-"-^ i^s^mme^^^^^^^^^^ 

hntPd nr lent to the states—Jackson required specie at his land-sale^— ^jUU,UUU,uuu ^\cle aue 
buted or l«itto m^ ^J'^''^; , j ^{j„^s froi'^ the south and west to the sea-board cilies-and 
Sauks ?S S^mmScidpSofle w^^^^ in debt to Europe. The expenditure ot" the fede- 

S Sveni"eyoncf its income, but it liad the power of pledging public credit by placmg 
SSIsmw notes or due bills into the hands of iavorite bankers to be sold for gold and silver 
.L fff^Lr was not too wisely used. Some six or eight bankers and great trading houses 
fnEnSranowed™^^^ in these states to di-aw 

on thfm for rramoimts in payinent of goods for the American market; character was no 
Sir Essential osrc™n Uifc; mercantile firms without capital^ or experience rose among 
SikeS looms and the very nature of commerce was changed to speculative gambling on 
us like musmooms d."^^ " J^ Pncriish neonle did not understand the profligate game which 

V.Ti"S^iS^l-^^^^yeZv^^^^ '^ American^institutions and Ame- 

XTu honm was 1^^^^^^^ believed that the Hoj^s, Olcotts, Swartwouts, Marcys, 

Stenhen Tie ^Wri^^^ Biddies, Woodburys, Jaudons and Hurrays ot tins new con- 

S So "fSl" ".lie ,.a« financial machi« ="»-->f " ..f"' '?« ™ "iS^l^HSii 
mm rareles.nes?- thev Called in thou- loans mill umisual haste; and being pm aleiy aovisca, 

^^^t^r!:^^^^^^ Sreiror«^-a . Ma, Uia. 

bariy m ^^-^ V Y_ '- *'"^ r>''"'^«'f Rnnks of New York resolved tovnthhold papnentof 

r,STa"5 wti,e,r M^c^SE sasl°i=?e" legalized llijs ,nons,ion.;,raud; and 

nons to ^, Dem-, a, vvuuuiaw -i ^^ ^^^ hundred— and 

a large business, ^ith not^\oXl^t^^W debtors The Bank of England allowed James 
English creditors were ^^^y ^asy^^ ^J^,^^ minfons of dollars to uphold credit here. 

Brown of Liverpool to draw on ttiem toi ci^m ui icii ii i nf Dpp 1837 Van Buren's 

and of that sm.\ tlnnk ^^^^^^^Sl^^t the" pe^^baS^s^tnimenTJou^S no^tTm! 
message told the public, ij^^'^^,!'";^-!;"— paid to the public creditors in lieu of real 
Soney%nd tSe^nSes weTeSSl^lSrCust^ House in p^ment of government duties. 
Bank bills were refused. 

>. rr „ r„,, -R ..„.c TVip TP-ider bv referring to the correspondence of Messrs. I- lagg, Cut- 
tinr C L Livm.; on mS ■ Hoy .an 1 P ,' Ips, will perceiveAhat ivlien chartered tanking had 
S; Voldind taSd S taigained off Jlavorites, to make presidents aiid governors and 
SuK'tll^^h^j^otVanBuren^^^^^^^^^^^ 

!SL?;Ss,hf;;i?|||j^n|iigono^ 

schemes of wholesale knaveiy, like tne inoiui ^xiucii^a ,-nimic ^nle The neonle 

D. Beers, President; others equally desperate m f ^-^^^^^J' ^Jf^^°' , ^Xd tSn and wh?^^^^^^^ 
lost, by tile insolvent banks, from 5 to io per cent. «" . ^e no^es they had '^1^^"' f J^^.^f'^"^ 
came of those who trusted funds witli them may readily be guessed. As to the ^eueial iree 



138 FREE BANKING. MARCY REPEALING VAN BUREn's GAG. 

banking With a remedy provided for neglect or dishonesty which is no remedyf 
at all buch a law, preceded by a commission of practical inquiry, is much 

tTaf" h ^'h^'; ^^'ll-^^-*^^ ^-^i ^'- Hard, in SenL, express'ed tt opmion 
that "banks had cost th,s country, by their expansions, faiiuis, and subsequent 
revulsions, hve hundred m.lhons of dollars." Banks, lik^ merchants, are very use- 
iul to society ; but as long as the government shall continue to be a sort of patent 
panic manulactory and the laws not be made for the public benefit, we shall 
hear contmuaUy ot the stoppages and explosions of our defective financial 

^^nrZ ] uVfA ^1 '"°''' '"'u^''"= '^ '^' understanding of the An.erican 
people, than to behold a league or band of their hired and well paid officials 

trade law the Supreme Court have decided that the legislature could not on their oaths rnn 
«itutionally pass it, but the Senate of N. Y, as a Cdirt of EiTors have dec ared ihaf'.s « 
Senate they made no mistake at all. There was no other bankin.o^irtWsSo??^^^^^^^ 
melve or tourteen years of its independence than tree banking under^he SgfiJh pStnerhip 
law. Levi M'Keen's was a free bank ; so was Jacob Barker's Lxchange • but tlfev dfd r/o^f 
solve the grand secret, stability and uniformity of value. Amos Kendalf h'ke Sir PoUr r^.f 
declares that "free banking is free gambling." On the contrSy^Mr.' Enant oi U e FoS 
would make bankmg tree to all. He is a liberty boy in right eainkt He would tlnow?£ 
reins over the horses' necks, and trust to their discretion not" to upset hecocch so he rcnld 
Lxpenence on the contrary^ would check the quadiupeds, and the^ed tor ol S;e Po° ft he S 
but look at the results ol tree-banking in N. Y. since kst he reviewed KenSlmaVfrd h 

stated. In iMarch 1817, he introduced a bill to Senate for a new bc.nk>ng!vMcm nolidii- 
tl u^"'°'V^f\^''^^ P'^''*'"' ""^^' ^^*^^°"^^<^ ^« Iree-b.nkers, to be jointV." rd^cma Iv e 
rF^f!u!l.!f '^'' ?'"'''''"' '"'^^' ^' ^ P^'^^*^ ^P^^if''^-'^- In ^a^^e the link stlp tnmc^r oMt^ 
notes It shall pay ten per cent, interest on the amount to the holders: its parlnus mun ro? 
while thus associated, buy grain, sell merchandize, or deal in securities or S urlf'^^iKfe 
they have to take them tor debt. Ihe bank to rcrcrt cnce a vccr to the rr i^rTn'l^. r t^ 

he mJghl be fined from a cent to SI.OOO, and sent between one day and seven vcls to -S^c's 
prison. Why did not this last clause appjv to chartered banks i ' ^ ^ 

me^sTf "o? 1?37'^ d7ounced the N. Y. kcstiaining Law as a most odious monopoly in his 
mes-sagt. ol 18J7. Of course \ an Burcn had teen friendly to it. Cn refererce to c-Vr- ^ 
Journal^lS, page 17U, I find that the Restraining Law froiidcd, hat Lkdiilefurl ^^^cci■ 
«°n;7n .'^^ '""f."'''"' "'^'" ^*^'P ^">' office of dqosit /or the Furrc.e5di..eSgrVcmt' 

soiy notes; or lor carrpng on any banking business which incoporated tanks aifcmfc; 

ized by law to carry cn ; or i.^sue any tills or p rcmi.^scrv r.ctes as j inate barLers ur k- e re 
"cially authorized bylaw. ' Aclause in the bill exempted Jacob Eaikcr's btrki;;- J ee^v^ffs' 
from the monopoly ; and this was opposed by Col. Young, and Messrs Eow e ^nd H rri^rTH 

In I&IO Jan. 20, in Senate, Mr. Clay assumed it as a tact, that wiih'h s constiiut icr^ t'nk 
E' '',K^ •?■''"' '"'^ 'f "°' }^^ put down. U it is stopped i,,' one state, another Sflcodtha; 
T K ^ 'fi P^P"' f^ ^'.' '^' P™^''- ^« in^^t^nced aates which had oi ro.cd p; per in tverv 
shape, but findmg that other states supplied it to them, changed thcir\olicy^n order ih-^ 
they might have some of the advantages of paper * i^'^-y, Ju orcu ma 

.Jiv^'^'r^'^^ '*•"'' the French Republicans disliked bank notes, end were erra-cd at the 
abolition 01 the as.signal.s. " The intention of having recourse to the fin.' ncial c ir pfniei re 
vived all prejudices. 'Hic government.'Mhcy said, ''was going to give it^eSfpae^in^to^ 
jobbers; ,t was about, by establishing a bank, to ruin the assignals, and o d?c^rov ,1? r ne.^ 

The Senate's Commutee on Banks, Albany, April, 1845, document 97 de4ribe in r-^rt thP 
operation 01 the general hanking law of 1838, this :-There are initmions ''called^ uVk. 
principally owned by brokers in New York, whose soleorchief business iftoobtarb lit frrn,' 

i^T^-U n^ ^^ T" •^" •"'" : ^"'"''''"■'* ""^ Mechanics- Bank of Ogdensburgh,' whS h?d 
.S208 734 of their notes m circulation, and had not lent the public one cent • ll.c Jrmes' Bark 

cani't^rJ'" ^i'm ™'r '^- ^'^^^^r^ Bank, Rochester, and two o?three mole ; in al eight •' 
^^^^-.n^w ^'•.""'"u"' circulation, §545 600; loans and discounts ,o the public fnlV 
».17,920 VVould It not be as well for the republic to have the interest on this ciiculatLn i 
he ew brokers that now get it ? Probably eve n the S37,9'20 lent, is chiefl^ lcn?3Mheie tanks 
Rpn'^Vn)'"""'- 1^*1" committee consider the White Plains Bank, and "tlie Warren Countv 



THE GRAND JACKSOM REFORM WHAT WAS IT ? 139 

condemn an important measure, as vile, unprincipled, infamous, revolutionary, 
tyrannical, innately corrupt and base, and an open violation of the constitution ; 
and when they have thus crushed and blackened it, and left the country to be 
pillaged for years by other means of their providincr, to see them all of a sudden 
wheel quite round about, and begin to puff and laud the same old and repudiated 
proposition, as if it were a voice from heaven 1 Was it not thus that Polk,^ 
Wrip^ht, Croswell, Van Buren, and their interested allies acted in the matter of 
the sub-treasury and the pet, state, local, or treasury banks 1 

Secretary Duane replied to Gen. Jackson's recommendation of chartered state 
banks (of our politics) as being the best sub-treasuries for the party : " Trea- 
sury Department, July 10, 1833. Il is manifest that the icelfare of the people 
demands, that instead of being a partner in either, they [the people] should be 
independent of both United States and local banks.'' To which Jackson res- 
ponded, " that he had himself asked Congress, so to organize the treasury de- 
partment as to dispense with banks, but that he had not been attended to by 
cono-ress or the people." Sixteen months afier that., the Globe, by Blair, thus 
officially expressed the deliberate opinion of Jackson, Van Buren,* Wright and 

* What WAS THE Jackson RsroRM TO CONSIST IN ?— ft is to end, sikl Blair, for Vnii Buron, " in t'le s ip- 
prPssionol-Mlli.ape, Hi.nevund r $100.' -•• I w..u|,l n.vsdf l.miisi, all |.:M.er money under $11)0, ; .aid I II. 
Benlon in a leiier.— ' R sirict all issuf-s of bank bills below S:0, fo ihwiili. ' «ui ■tli the D.-iiiocraic Review — 
'•Gol.l'and silver C'. in is J.ck^-m mo .ev ; "loies wiili pictures on tli in i.romi-i .■; to pay, ;lio hunk s nii.ney. 
So -:aid Bl^ir March 29 l?3l. Did n .t tho |dan oi 1837 preseive Hie J tcksoii nioney evcl.isively lor tlL: .l.ll ? 
Wer- n..t ih • CH.tradntorv plans of Van B iren and P..lk tr ed 1 Oul ih -v do more or I -ss lli in lOb lue li<m st 
to enrich llie base and ar fnl ? Did mn the «/«/,« pour lorlh hos.naahs f. I h., . xclu^^iv gold crrency of ihe 
TTiii.iii .ndincr ii J,«s<! Il.'yt's k laverv here, and nai.nal bankruptcv. rcpudiaiion, s'lia plas er.->. and bd as 
Wri-ht1 hri?37, the Albany Reg ncv issued a minif .-to. tl.i<uuii He Ar-us ile onici g i..e Joco f .c'>ts and 
d clari .a that " th.y never ente tain, d tli<^ visionary project of an eve iisive nie.dliccinency ; hm t le (r.obe, 
by Itlair, had prnphesiid, in 1831, t'.ut "in sev«,i m nlhs f on. ihi. tini.', bank r.np will be abo i-hed, and the 
Jh 1.' cAu.itry will be ovr.s .re.-.d with gold." In ISJt. Sda,. Wrgh. al.liorred the b.nK and s ated v .rce, and 
"had the n...st entire c.Mifi.lenc- in tue lull and cornel le sn.:c.-s.- of th- [p^t bmk] experim.'ni, ' b ni an. of 
which a few hn.idr.vl gimbling leaders pill.iaed the us^ fnl cl.nsse^ of s-ciety to Hie .-.vti-nt oi iw.aiiy noli .ns ot 
dollars. In 18 t7, we find W.iiht .xcla.ming, •' What, then, can Congr ss d- 7 We an=^w, r. uy the y.t unt i d ejt- 
"Ddient Iroducea perfect and entire separation betwe n the tinanc.-s ol tlienau.ai and a I me b.nks ..t i-sne, 
'• ..r disc 'uiil.tiowever, or hv what a'lthorty existing; b twee . t.i- naiional treas.irv and tli s- a.tincialcrea. 
" tions of le ■i-laiion npoi which we haves.) unforinnat-lv aifrnpt-d lo d p :n.l. Weh;ve in d the la tn ot 
" theoe soniless e\isl-nces, in all thei.' f.'.ms of bei ig, and lliat fai b has always faded ns m th ■ honr o(_utm..st 
"need Now Int u" try the lailh of luatnral persons, ..f in.>ral accou table agents, of I leenien L.ft tamgr-SJ 
" trust the sale keeping of tlnr public treasu e wiih ciiize.is, a- sucli, .-•nd not as i.ai.k corporators : sviih ni. n lO- 
" =D nsible t.. iiself and not lo m.-neyed institutions." At ihis hour. (.Maich. 18!6.) the slate ot N.nv York, with 
VVri"ht at the h. ad of ii. a..il iln- Uni ed S ales government, wi;h P.> k at the helm, are irusimg t n m II oo.s ot 
nionev stea.lilv. to the arliticial cr a ions, ilie s..nll..s- e.xis euces, whi< h always tail, winle ihe admin s;rauon is 
hold n" up as "••th.r "real salvation." Hie old subtreii-uo' scliem. of l«-IO Are noi suoli m n ablo. in ih ■ naU .n- 
al -scutcheon 1 G neral Ha r'Son in his inanunral, said, '• if ihi-re i- on- measure he t. r rul iilat d tliiin au- 
" other to o. educe iimi state of iliinss, iiy which the rich are daily ad.ling lo tie ir hoa.ds. and iht pour .sinking 
"de. o.r inio pe.urv, ii is d.i excluM-e nietalli-. curr.aicv. Or if there i^ a pr..ce-s by -.vluch the i.haracter ,>t ihe 
" counirv for cenerositv and noble .ess "i filling may he destroy od by the gr. ai increas.a ..I nec.ss iry toleiati. ii 
•' of usury- it is an exc ill^ive meta lie currency." Now the stale a..d U. S. nov r.uiien c..niinaally .■,. i as il ihey 
really iieli'ved ti.is, while ihev conii .ue, nevertheless, Uusiily to vocif.rate in favor of u clmnge, in order mat they 

'"when v'!!! Bn.vn'''s Sub- I'r.as.iryc line into operation, in Nevv York, il made rare sport to the Wdl street 
wil< Tetibels a roa-^ervaiive blacksmith, hamm red out an iniiiieii.se Iron vault or safe, at a n.si of $^,000, to 
hold" not tl.fc sp. cie, but the bank not s, wh le t.ie specie was in Uie b oiks, or payi g fir Ame icin piirch .s.s in 
Cnini or J .p.in I'he ir.n vanli was all a drc-ption to bi »1 ihe real hakds till afte- the re el, ction ot Van 
B iren In tli.'se days. Hoy a d hi> ca hi.rs received in payment of dimes, i , I eu ol siene, the iiiereiian.'a 
ch ck iiDon a bank. . ndor.s.d "payalile m specie," with bank notes ol specie paying hanks. Toe checks and tne no.ts 
were occasi nnliy kept i . the i.on vault, b.ii ih.- co n rema.ne.l in the b mK vaults ; and il one we.i to SLpln-u 
Allen Uic r. ceiver general, lo get money lor a treisnry note, he loo paid m paper. The f'ollect.ir niide bis de- 
Dosits'in a bank, and ilie i reported lo AHen as r.c.eiv-r twice a week— the div.nce of bank and slate, iherelore, 
in New York cons.st d in pl.icing iherev nueiu banks, and receiving no peuie,or as lii;leol itaspo sible.lordu- 
ties • also in ivis in;: ih- paper dollars tliroufih the hamls of lloyl and Aden i.. stead of only one oi ihem. Ou Uia 
llth'of Senteiiibes 1837. Bennett said i)i bis Herald, thai Calhoun iniiiht be goin.j ulira with V.iii Buren in order 
to break him d.wn One ihing is clear, Butler, H..yt & Co., so manag. d ih^; larilT, the sui. treasure and th ■ col- 
lection of iherevinue. as to deceive the sou, h, bv appearing in foil. iw one line <.f p.dicy wlide im truth ihy were 
do ne ibeir verv utmost against ii. A Mae Mib treasury i^ talked of now at Albany, but it's all talk. Fligg does 
n .1 want il Roraci- Grei !■ y says, " the Manliatlan and Bank of ihe State here, the Farmeis and Mechanics at 
Alb my and two or tlireemdre pet 'monsters' have the handling, keeping, and nnr-strietrd lending .ii the Fouror 
Fue Milli .ns per annum, colL-.ted and disbursed bv our State, on terras fir mon; la.x than those accorded by 
the F. d. ral Gover»m. nt. AH this vast am .iim is regularly collected and disp is d in Bank Noe.s— not a sii\er 
of coin about ihe business— and our Compiroiler and the Banks are always playing mlo e^ch other's hands, tor 
niiiiual advaniage." , j ^ o 

Van Bur.n wrote RovernorR»ynolds, March Cih, 1841, praising ''a mixed curreticy, cotnposed of a well 
balanced and harmonious co operation of the standard of value and its paper represeniaiive. 'Benlon canvassed 
for Van Bureo, in 1830, as beiog " a teal hard money man." Jackson says, in his letter lo ftl<wes UawBOu, 1 



140 POLK AND CO. AT YES AND NO. BRITISH BANK REFORM. 

the party then in power, relative to a renewal of Duane's proposition, when 
formally made in Congress : {^" The proposition of Mr Leigh ' to dissolve =#§ 
gtf- all connection between the treasury and banks,' is disorganizing, revolu- «4)g 
0^ tionary, subversive of the fundamental principles of our government -^^ 
^ and its entire practice, from 1789 down to this day; it is as palpable -:g)g 
^ as the Sun, that the effect of the scheme would be to bring the public -#j^ 
{^ treasure much nearer the actual custody and control of the President -C^ 
^ than it is now, and expose it to be plundered by a hundred hands, ^^ 
^ where one cannot now reach it." ^) When I say that this is the delibe- 
rate statement of the Globe of Nov. 20, 1S34, by authority— that the journals 
of Congress show that the proposition (and for the same reasons too,) was reject- 
ed by the nearly unanimous votes of Jackson and Van Buren's friends — that 
the faithlessness of pet banks was as well known and tested in 1S34 as in 1837 
—that Calhoun, in Senate, March 21, 1834, when discussing the question of 
excluding all but specie from the receipts of the government, said, "But there 
is in my opinion a strong, if not an insuperable objection against resorting to 
this measure, resulting from the fact that an exclusive receipt of specie in the 
Treasury would, to give it efficacy and to prevent extensive speculation and 
fraud, require an entire disconnection on the part of the government with the 
banking system in all its forms, and a resort to the strong box as the means of 
preserving and guarding its funds— a means, if practicable at all, in the present 
state of things, liable to the objection of being far less safe, economical, and 
efficient than the present," adding " my impression is, that a new bank of the 
U. S., engrafted upon the old, would be found to combine the greatest advan- 
tages, and to be liable to the fewest objections ;"* and that same year he remark- 
am, and ever have been, opposed to all kinds of government paper currency, let it be derived from the exchequer 
or oilierwise. Van liuren began his reign by the issue of a " government paper currency," in the form of trea- 
sury notes. While Van Buren is for a well balanced, mixed currency, Jackson asks Dawson Where is ihe use of 
a paper currency ? fteiihi^r the nicicliant nor laborer wants it. It is one of the L-reatest humbiiL's to say 
that there is not s|)ccie enough in the world to answer all the necessary wants of the community. Look at Cuba, 
lliere IS no p,-iper there. Now here are contiictiiig opinions, and yet Van Biiren, in his inausur.il, savs that he 
had complt-tely agreed with Jackson in sentimem, and had partaken lar-ely of liis confidence. ~ Who wiu suppose 
that It was otherwise t Yet n is evident there is decided opposition iiere. Who was sincere 1 

* What is Engl-ind .^boi-t 7-In May, 1844. Sir Robert Peel said, in parli.iment, that "there aro a number of 
people who thmk that the trade in bank notes shoul.l be as free as tlie trade in anythins else : and that no more 
dan^'cr will arise from a free manufacture of paper money, resting on mutual credit and contideiico, than from the 
free manufacture ot any other article. But experience tells against this opinion : and within the last half cen- 
tury three nations have lelt, in tremendous force, the evils arising from the abuse of paper money. These na- 
tions are France, Britain, and the United States : France, during the first revolution, when the ovdr i>-«ue of thj 
suite paper money, called assio-nats, caused fearful havoc ; Britain, during the war. when the Bank Re^triclion 
Act thouth giving, in the first instance, an unnatural expansion of trade, and a ficliiious prosperitv entailed 




re, a terrible master— as a river carefully held within emhankinents, it may serve as a convenient medium of 
transit, but when it rises as a flood, it sweeps everythinc vaUuible away, if exposed to its resistless fur 




Imndred years ago, that wln^n it lessened the quantity of its notes in circulation it r- ctiried the exchance^ Puuer 
vwTiey must be convertible into coin at the will of the holder, and there must be some clieck to prevent' the results 
which unlimilcd competition and the absence of control liad brought on the r„ii,,,,| Smtes, ihrongli excess of 
issues. When prices rise and speculation is active the country banker issues more notes. At such a time he 
ough to lessen hi.s issues. Sir Robert thought that a single bank issuing bank notes for the whole kingdom 




„,u„_ 1 . i '. .1 t" I • .' |..i>^, ■-■■>,.■. 113 i.v>K-B «uiiiu ue u lawiui leiKier, inns secuieu, 5 

other places but the b.ink, where they must be always convertible into gold .,f .standard v ilu.' on demand. No 
new hank to be cr.ated, with the pow.r to issue paper as money, but exi.-ting banks might issue notes equal to 
the average of their previous circulation, subject to a weekly puhlicaiioii of nil th.ir liabiliii. <: Joint ftock 
iMiiks to be bound by the acts of their ilir. clors, but iheir shareholders arc to be mnde free from being liable 
for the nets r,l Individual shareholder.s, as now, under the Kngli.h law of partnership. /\ll banks ol issue to 
1?m„V,''1m".i"'"' I'"'^'"^'"'"'' of 'h« """"«■'' "<■ "I" 1'" ir partners, th:.t the public mnv know who are respon- 
•ibie for all (heir transactions. Lvery new bank must have the sanction of gowrmmnt, in orderio Ksgisira. 



VAX buren's penal laws not made for great rogues. 141 

ed that should the deposltes not be restored to the U. S Bank he would (as 
he a e wards did ) o-o for a prohibition of bank notes m all the dealings of the 
iovexine^, the lider will at once perceive that the leaders of the democracy 
oTZ north betrayed their trust-that, knowing that the pet banks were unsafe 
^rrespors ble, they leagued themselves with them ; and that their after conduct 
n e^eavori,;. to' give the people the infeinor currency and the c^^^^^^^ 
the superior -^Buffalo Bank rags to the farmer, golden eagles to W rig h , Folk, 
Van Buren and the rest of the lawmakers; they betrayed the peop e, and 
showed to all men, that sordid, selfish, and meanly ambitious motives had guided 

their whole conduct. . , , i« 

General Jackson condemned the sub-treasury in toto, and removed Duane 
from his high office for advocating a bank and state divorce. It is considered 
against theVnius of our free institutions," said Jackson, 'to lock up in the 
yfults the-tR^asure of the nation ; such a treasure would doubtless oe emplo>^d 
at some time, as it has been in other countries when opportunity tempted am- 
bition " " Individual agents would probably be found less responsible sate 
convenient, and economical " than the banks, quoth Woodbury ; Mvartwout 
and* Hoyt did all they could to prove him in the right. "If Gen. Jackson had 
suc^cested such a .system [the Sub-Treasury] ^vhat peals ot painotic mduj- 
natUm would have burst from eloquent senators against the usurper and Ujront 

~~UU a .ienned torm of trust deod, aud a r^uUr audit o^ ^^--^ J-^Z^,^!^;^,:^ ^:^^^ 
should think fit to circulate more btink notes than G9 " •rln^ '™„^"' :; ^''t ^"« ^ ^y„ ,0, 

of .^[dy onniaMc to iiue l^nk notes in tl.e Kingdom ^ Nu notes me r=^ed ^^^^^^^^^^^^l^^S^^, i 
received '-^ ' f^V ^i^;;^^^- u'la v ;y vo . n^ s b'^.t 1 have lost it!' Hor.,ce Binr^.y argu.d ably 
!ri93^"[n Co e^ tint a S'raS-od n 'eLjis a p!ai" violation of the constitutional pledge, that the ob h- 

to pay than sin: law here, but is susceptible of great improvement. 

* DT..HONHST Lawgivers.-Foi- a Collector of Cu.stoms to take a .solemn oath to do his duty 
faithfallv, his chief dutv bein^ to receive the revenue levied from the people by law and pay 
Uover for the national uses, for him to take this oath, and then rob the treasury of ^220,000, 
as Tie Ho t did, is foul perjurv added to a worse crime than theft. The thiet hungers, or is 
hi lis and he steals. We did" not trust him. We take precautions agatns^t all such But 
Ho\™ trusted-made not less than S-10,000 to 50,000 a year by his ofhce-had h^^ [^l^tion 
in wlaces of emolument-and had therefore no temptation to betray his country as he did. Van 
Bu?en Wright, and their friends either framed the sub-treasurv act so that it would i^nish 
ro-nes like Ho ft, or thev pretended to do so. I know, by a year of close imprisonment, that if 
a "tran-er true a:s steel to liberty and democracy, land ou these shores to-day, ignorant of 3-our 
kws, some old act, that had never been enforced against a native, wi 1 be toimd, to pun.sh him 
stve 'elv if he goes a hair's breadth beyond the line of strict neutrahty. When the udiig dis- 
nict attorney and the secretarv of the treasury ordered Hoyt to be cnminally prosecuted fot his 
eSezSeraent his old friend Judge Betts f.und that the law did not apply to cases like 
5Sse'sH™ So, too. Senator Breese; of Illinois, in Congress, Jan. 1844 moved for an mqmiy 
S Ae law pa4ed by the whig Congre.ss, August 13, 18H, continuing the pumshmg clauses ot 

iues was charged with embezzling the people's cash. The fellow was f'X-^'^^^^^^'^l'^ 
-but the quibble that cleared him was, he had been removed from ot^ce. In McNultv s case 
his m iscoSduct was evident. Would a House of Congress, the majontj' of the member.s ot 
which were composed of his political friends, havo turned him off so discreditably had not his 
offence been mo?e" clear and unquestionable'' tban Polk's 54-10' 1 \ et he got clear through 
Sie dishonesty of the svstem. How did Price, Swartwout, and hundreds like them get c ear 1 
Bennei °hall tell vou. ' His eight years of intimacy with Van Buren qualifies him as a wttness. 
In the N Y Herlld Dec. 10, 1838 (long before Jes,se's explosion), Bcnnet savs : "When 
wil JeSe Hoyt run awav 1 Defalcations are no crime. Mr. Van Buren, m his Message, 
propost; to mal- defalcaiions of the public money felony, and punishable in the State Prison 
Ksense ! Neither party will agree to such an absurdity ! Never." I am sorry to see such 
things said; still more so when I find that they cannot be disproved. 



142 POLK FOR THE PETS MARCY AND WALKER SHAVING. 

who desired to get the millions of the treasury into the very hands of his par- 
tisans and parasites." This is from Van Buren's echo, the Washington Globe. 
Mr. Thomas Ritchie, too, chimed in with the chorus of official indignatioa 
against the sub-treasury. Listen to Thomas as he talks to ' Old Virginia ' 
through the columns of the Richmond Enquirer : 

" We have objected to the Sub-Trea.sury scheme, (so called,) that, in the fii'st place, it will 
enlarge the Executive power, already too great for a Republic; '3dly, that it contributes to 
endanger the security of tlie public funds ; and thirdh^, that it is calculated to produce two cur- 
rencies — a br.ser one for the people, and a better one for tlie government. Tlie more we reflect 
upon the matter, the more we read the speeches of the orators on both sides, the more fumly we 
are satisfied of the .strength of these objections." " It is certainly subject to very strong objec- 
tions, not the least of vvliich is the very great increase of patronage to which it must give rise, 
and a patronage of the most dangerous influence, as being so immediately connected with the 
public money." " But I can see no advantage, and on the contrary, a fruiiful source of mischief, 
m making government oliicers the keepers of the cash. Place about them what guards you 
may, in tlie shape of com.nissioners. iiispectors, or whatever else, pc^tdation will be endless. 
TiLcre is no security in it, jind it will involve heavy and unnecessary expense. The chief and 
overruling objection, however, is th; endless source of paffonage to which it would give rise. 
Make the machinery as simple as you may, and open to view, wherever money is, u.*mptatioa 
will creep in, and corncption in e-venj form fuUows at the heels." 

In 1S34-, James K Polk was the organ of the U . S. Treasury in the House 
of Rc^presentatives. Listen for a moment to iMr. Ciiancellor Folk:* 

" A corporation may be safer than any individual agent, however responsible he may be, 
because it con.sifts of an association of individuals who have thrown together their aggregated 
wealta, and who are bound in their corporate character to the extent ol' their whole capital 
stock for deposits. In addition to this the iSecretary of the 'Treasury may require as heavy col- 
latjral security in addition to their cjipital stock paid in, fronr .such a corporation, as he could 
from an individual collector or receiver, which makes the government deposit safer in the 
hands of a bank, than it could be with an individual. It may be well que.'-tiontd whether the 
he.vie.'^t security the most wealthy individual could give, could make the public deposits safe, 
at thi point of large collection. In the city of New York, half the revenue is collcacd. Seve- 
r; 1 millions of public money may be in the hands of a receiver at o ;e lime, and, if he be cor- 
rupt, or shall engage in speculation or trade, and meet with a reverse of fortime, the loss 
sustained by the goverimaent would be inevitable." 

♦ K>fowi.EDGE IS Power. — To show what chances there are, through otir gambling system 
of politics, to defraud the millions, I state the f)llowing case from the Courier and ii^nquirerof 
Dec. 10, 1832, where it rppears, headed " Stockjobl.iing — Stupendous Fraud." It is possible 
enough that John Van Buren may have made money by his lather's and Jaclcson's Me.ssage.s, 
as well : s bv Marcy's, but whether Webb and Noah had good grounds for what they aflirm 
as to Mumfard anl Cambrelen^ I knjw not They .say, that on Nov. 2[). the price o; a share 
of U. S. Bank stock at the bjnra of brokers was lloi — and that Jarlcson's message lowered It 
in two days to l04i — iliat 14,500 shares uere sold mi tivu:. bctwei n Wed. Nov. 29, ; nd next Wed- 
mjrning; equal to S1,G35. 00), leaving a n:Xt profit to the Wall street s:ock|ob; ers, of S80,000 
nearly. The C. & E. asserts tlrat Cambreleng and Mumford knew what would be said in the 
misstig '. — that Miimfjrd had boa.sted tliat Jacl^'son gave him a copy of his ine--sr.ge on Satur- 
day night at 11 ; aai if so, tw.) dj3's were left clear to tiie g.unblers in tlie .secret, for the mes- 
sage appear ?d on the We-lne.<day. What a melancholy thing it is, that men wlio are elevated 
on tha ^nould.'rs of the pe iple to high honsr, should m3 olten iVirgit the noble patli beibre them, 
and turn round to wallow in tlie mire of sor.Ud, gravelling selfishness! The U. 8. Bank was 
hale I h\' t'le \ozi\.\ iivtitutions, because while they charged the heavy discount of S7 ofl" SlOO, 
the nitional Institution exacted but $6. 

Walker, the new Secretary of the Treasury, has gre.at influence with Polk, and ]Marcy 
manage.s the one through the other. Buclianan is on less familiar and intimate t<u-ms with the 
pre-^id mt. H'.; hoUb office, more on aa:ouni of his ability and standing, and of the .state of 
Pennsvlvania, than any persjual feelini; of fri;"n Iship. \V'lien Van Buren got to l)c pre,sident 
in 1837, I think he could have' passed tne sub-treasury had he been in earnest — but his friends 
had the wh;)le reve.iue in their hands as it was, they ma/le much money by using it in favorite 
binks, and I daresay that gaol bonuses were .•-eci-etly given in .some Ibim by dealers in it. In 
1810, when the t Tni was nearly out, and a re-election doubtful. Van Buren pre.ssed the new 
.scheme, early en mgh to show tiiat he meant to hoax the coimtry in that too. Polk and 
Walker talk sub-treasury fashion also, but are in no haste to enforce the principle. Walker 
tries it with Corcoran & RioS'^i Washington — has taken every dollar of public money from 



THE PET BANKS. MCDUFFIE. ORESTfiS A. BR0WN30N. 



143 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

FrofUqale Public Expenditure of Van Buren.a^ Presidemf— Orestes A. Brownsm 
—Francis Preston Blair, and the Globe—Van Buren's standard for Political 
Writers -National Debt— The 200,000 Militia Plan—Log Rolling— Edwin 
Croswell and John Van Buren—Veto Power Suspended— IVaste of the Reve- 
nue—Post Office Law— Silas Wright and .Slavery— Electioneering in Ay.— 
Helping the Press — Covetousness. 

I HAVE already alluded to many parts of Van Buren's public conduct during 
his presidential term, and there is much that ought to be noticed for which 
1 have no room in this volume. In his early life, and in matters which related 
to cash, he was covetous and mean— but in his management of the public finan- 
ces there was none more profligate. His conduct in *the Canada troubles, to- 

the banks in that city, and given $500,000 to tliem, to speculate on, without interest! Corcoran 
was once greatly embarrassed in money matters; his partner, Riggs, is wealthy. Ihe ques- 
tion is asked here, whether they got this S500,000 to dabble in the stocks in Wall street with 
it ■« They might have information beforehand of changes by which vast sums might be saved 
or gained. A cabinet minister, or more than one, might divide the spoil with them. In Vol- 
taire's time one of the king's secretaries told him when to buy and sell stocks. Somebody may 
tell Corcoran and Rig^s also. What a pity it is that crises must be created that knaves may 
grow rich ' One of the Baltimore resolutions was ae:ainst surplus revenues. Why have we 
ten millions of a surplus lent to 400 bank directors, who are chiefly cunning stockjobbers, and 
pay no interest to us, while the nation is paying interest on debts that might be bought up and 
paid with the money ! I begin to think that the Baltimore Convention of 1844, Walker, But- 
ler and all, wa.s a vile trick on societv for the gain of a few. At present, 50 banks, with a host 
of gambling managers, hold eight or'ten millions of the public money, not to lend it to upright 
me'rehanis and manuiacturers,'"but to sport with, like 'mv dear Jesse' and his man John, m 
betting, stockjobbing and electioneering. If Walker hold on to the Treasury for a year or 
two he'll clear old scores and mav give wav to some other victim of speculation. 

In 1838 and 1S40, Senator Mcbaffie said that "the Sub-Treasurv was the only remaining 
alternative, unless we retiuned to the notorious pet-bank system, which gave to the Federal 
Executive a more dangerous and corrupting influence than any other scheme ever sugge.'-ted; 
and which had b?en condemned by experience, and O" denounced by both parties in succes- 
sion.'' I quote McDuffie from'the Soidk Carolinian, and bid the reader rememl)er that Polk, 
Marcy and Walker, talk sub-treasurv now, but have stuck to the dishonest treasury pets of 1834, 
all of them knowing as well that their country will be plundered wholesale through their means, 
as Woodbury did in a like case in 1838, or Dallas in 1815. 

* Orestks a. BRowN-iON.— Since writing the lollowing letter, Mr. Brownson, as well as myself, has seen 
crouml for "ood hope thiit the CrtUsc of n!ilion;il freedom iiiish: be promoted by pe:ir<?. En^lmd h.is pot 
the territory she coveted, with t!ie consent of Wrisht, TallriiiHlge and Cfilhoun, the l.-ilt(>r of whf)m, with Mc 
Diifiie though reHdy to cut the connection with the U. S., to set rid nf tiix;,tion ;it the Charleston Cil-itom 
House and although Mcknowiedijed in the London Times to be Eiigl:in(l's finiie>t f.iend in thi-; repuhlic, iirffed 
hiinexation because if English influence were to prevail in Texas it would interfere with our tariff! ! ! Eng 
land sees a proud and angiy spirit in the western stales which the potiticiil rascals In Washington wi-h to use 
for electioneering purp-oses next election. I am sorry thut her long misgovernment of O'.nadM, the wanton cru- 
elties her agents practised on so many worthv and true-hearted men, the manly sons of Ireedoin who were sent 
Jc the aall.iws by her commands, have roused feelings in the west which I coald now desire to see allayed, for 
the past is bevond recall. , 

Orrsles A. Brownson. of JilassachuaeUs, to H'. L. Mnckenzie, when m Hnchesttr Pnson. 

Boston, Ajiril ^2, 1840. Dear Sir : Though personally a stranger to you, I have yet for sonie time been 
wishin" to' express to you my sympathy with your attachment to the cause of Freedom for the Canadas, and 
niv sincere regret that your attachment to that cause should have met in this land of professed Freedom, no 
belter reward than a .tail. I have a fellow feelini: with, I was about to say, all Rebels ; at least with all who 
struggle against power and seek to secure for the people a portion of their long lost liberty. All goyerniiients 
which have hitherto exi^ts-d have been founded in oppression and mairiiaincd by fraud and force.— They have 
been based on injustice, and opposition to them is the cause of God and Man. Our own government, in theory 
is based on the rights of man, founded on justice ; but it has hitherto been administered in all its departments, 
quite too nmch in accordance with the maxims of the governments founded on the opposite tlic.iry. lu forming 
our government we acted from ourselves, and vi-ere original, but in managing it we Ixirrow from the practice of 
the Old World. We read its literature, study its politics, its jurisprudence, its philosopljy, and lose sight of 
our own principles. Hence it is, that there is a striking discrepancy Ijelween our theory and our practice, be- 
tween the encouragements we hold out to the friends of liberty abroad and the actual reception we give them. 
This Is not all. We have never achieved our independence on England. We are scarcely less dei)€ndent on 



144 F. p. BLAIR. VAN BUREn's STANDARD OP STYLE AND DECORUM. 

wards the Florida Indians, and the people of IMexico and Texas, is elsewhere 
briefly noticed. It would be impossible for any candid writer to praise it. Is'o 
man could be more obsequious than Van Buren was to the south while in 
power, yet they deserted him in 1S40 ; and in }844 when his name came up for 
a third trial, they condescended to give him §t^ twelve -votes. In truth, they 
distrusted him ; all parties have done so in turn. No man professed to agree 
more cordially than he did with Jackson, in 1828, in favor of one term only ; but 
in that also the result proved that he was insincere. 

Jackson left office with 30 or 40 millions in the banks of Van Buren's selection 
— be left the country out of debt. Although the banks suspended cash pay- 
ments, yet most of them paid in uiTcurrent paper. The revenue was enormous, 
but Van Buren expended it all* and left a public debt, March 4, 1841, ot 

ihe British Empire now than we were before the revolution of '76. We dare not assume in regard to the Bri- 
tish Government the tone of equals. We could menace France and obtain justice, hut we dare not cl-.im ex- 
cept in an iipolo(:elic tone, even our riihts of Enfiland. The treaty of '83 has never been carried into clTect, and 
never will be. Great Britiiin his claimed a portion of our territory which she wants for the purpose of con- 
nectins her North American dilonies, and which if obtained would give her, in case of war with this country, 
an equivalent for thirty thousand men. And, sir, this territory she will obtain unless 1 am greatly deceived. 
'I'he matter will lie settled by a compromise, and we shall surrender to her the important advanuifreshe desires. 
The reason of this is to be found in our close conunercial relations with Great Britain. 'J'he commercial Inter- 
est (if this country is controlled by En;;land, and we cap have no controversy with her without arming the 
whole business part of our community against our own government. This our gnvernment feels, and hence its 
tame submission to British arrogance. Here, sir, is the secret of your imprisonment. It is not, sir, that we ilo 
not love Freed(jm. that we do not know how to appreciate its defenders, but that we are afraid of ofTending 
England We barier national lionor and make (mrselves a bye-word in the Etrtli to please the trading portion 
of our cotnmunity. I am sorry that it is so, nut I almost <lespair of its being otherwise. Otherwise it will not 
be without a war with England, and which, us much as I deprecate war, is the only thing wliicli to me seems 
capable of saving the republic, and the sooner it comes the better. For your ellijrts to secure the independence 
of the Canadas, as one of the friends of Freedimi, 1 thank you. 1 do not think the lime for their indepen- 
dence has cotne. but it will come. The colonial system must be abandoned, for public opinion throughout 
the world is fast verging to tbe point that one nation shall c.vercise dominion over another no longer iKati 
the other lazily consents. With my prayer.s for the speedy arrival of the time when your countrymen fhall be 
free, and my hope that you will find ere this reaches you your own- freedom, I am, sir, with great respect, 
yours, O. A. Brownson. 

♦ Fr.^nci.s Preston Blair, Editor or the Globe. — Martin Van Buren, president of the 
United States in 1840, has been spoken of with perfect ireedom throughout this volume. Being 
somewhat at a lo.ss for a .suitable democratic standard of propriety, wlien speaking of great 
men, or men who had lield iiigh situations, a friend advised me to lake the Van Buren .stand- 
ard, the Globe, b}' Blair. In a letter dated Lindenwald, April 24, 1845, Van Buren writes J. 
C. Rives, " I thank you very kindly tor )'our noble and manly letter upon the subject of the 
transfer of the G^ok establishment, and repeat with pleasure what I have already said to Mr. 
Blair, that giVl approvk or your course througholt."43 

General Harrison became president in 1841. In 1840 his character was before tlie people 
The Globe said of liim, March 5, 1840 : '■ Let them [the South] beware how they place 
confidence in the versatility or subserviency of a weak, vain old man, in the dotage of 
expiring ambition. The combination of weakness and vanity with threescore and ten, is not 

so easily °-overned Let Mr. Tyler mount his old weather-beaten pony [Harrison], in the 

expectation of guiding him uT will A weal: old gentleman, whose vanity, always liis 

leading characterfstic, is every day pampered with fiatteries, and who.se obstinacy is only in- 
creased by the imbecility of age." Again (March G), " Goodv Harri.son, a gossiping old 
lady, and an available, who lives on a sinecure clerkship in a city, but is pretended to be a 
farmer living in a log cabin, and drinking hard cider." Once more, (March 17,) "The 
Whigs arc malcing great exertions for the old gra.nw, but all to no eflcct." This is Van 
Buren's approved standard of delicacy, when speaking in the name of a president in office, 
about a general in the armies of the republic, then a candidate for ilie succession, tlirough a 
press paid and pampered liy the people's agents. Apply Van Buren's standard to my book, 
and bbme me if vou can ! 

This s-'ime Glvbe, approved bv Van Buren "throughout," speaks of " Mr. Calhoun, who 
never told the truth when a falsehood would serve his iiun." Again, it tiescribcs Calhoun 
thus: " There was one, however, Reprobate Spirit that could not bear to look on the bright and 
auspicious day [of Van Buren's installation. Mar. 3, 1837,] and it was a pleasiu'c to all that 
the face of |::^Catiline was not se.:n on that occasion !" Calhoun's relative, Pickens, thujj 
sketched Blair: "A galvanized corpse That hideous visage whereon envy and malig- 
nity are blended in cadaverous union.'' It would seem th;:t Calhoun and Pickens had also 
approved of the Globe and its language, for without their aid Blair and Rives had not been 
elected public printers in 1810. 

Blair says of lumself, that before he was 21, he set up in life with a lucrative office, a clerk 



VAN BUREN's F0L!T!CAL M'DWIPEj F, P, BLAIR. 145 

$7,447,799, which Tyler increased other ten and a half nnillions. Since Polk 
caaie in'.o power, he lias had on hand a continual surplus ui' eight rniUionS; but 
instead of devoting; it to the payment of the public debt, on winch the cuunUy 
is paying interest, he lends it to a host of electioneering bank din^ctors who 
use it chiefly in stock speculations. The prolligale expenditures in Florida,* in 

in a court, a gooi wife, a fortune with her. That the sperulations of the times swallowed np 
-lis means, m.idj him a baiilcrupt, and that he surrendered his property to hi^ cred.Urs, g-ave 
up all, and emigrated to Wasniiigton. Van Burcu gave him letters to Lawrence, Hoyt, 
rsoih, &c. here, who got up a subscription, and bought a press and types lor him as a gd't. 
With these lie started tlie Globe on behalf of Van Buren, to try to cut out Green, who w" s f>jr 
Calhoun. Jackson and Van Buren put a million of dollars, or more, in his way, ani he is now 
very wealthy. In Kentucky, Blair was a strong C/(?//man ; but when he thought, like Ken- 
dall, that Jackson would succeed, he, in 1 825, wheeled round to the winning side. He hi\A 
be2n a speculator, stockjobber, &c., and his last otiice in Kentucky was that of a state bank 
president, [the CominH-! wealth Bank,] at Frankfort. A son of his is or was not long since 
Unitei States District Attorney for Missouri. Theophilus Fisk, in the Old Doininimi of 
Nov. 11, 1843, exposed Blair's claims to the public printing, thus: " He came I'rom Kentucky 
reeking with ban^ corruption, his hands unwashed trom the infamous transaction thit cheated 
General Jackson out of his election in 1821. He came to Washington poor and despised, but 
thi unboun.lel popularity of Jackson, tne defection of DutT Green, and the necessity of an 
organ at the seat of Governin:nt, brought this unlicked cab into notice, and gave him import- 
ance and power, raising up a brutal pan-enu, whose touch was contaminatii/U.'' If printing 
and banking could be settled permanently, it would be a blessing to America, for more than 
half the legislation of the UniteA States is devoted e.\:clus!vely to these two subjects. Bribed 
presses and bribed agents were the means whereby Van Buren compelled the people to har- 
ness themselves to his car, and support men and measures, they would have nobly spurned 
had the truth been told. But what really in-lependent press could live in Washington? 
Whence would it find support 1 The villainy of Blair, Ritchie, Croswell, and these Harris- 
burgh rascals, would never have become known to me, had they not fallen out. Hill's expose 
of Blair was complete. The petty thiei' whom the Recorder .sends to Blackwell's Island to 
break stones or pick oakum is an angel compared to the hired tool of a partv at Washington. 
No lawyer in the Centre Street Sessions ever lied more for his R'e than Blair has done for 
his fortune. His old ma.ster, Van Buren, approves it all. No doubt of it. Be it bank, or 
anti-bank, sub-treasury or treasury notes, war or peace, Texas or Oregjn, tariff" or anti-tarili; 
land sales for cash, or land sales for credit, good Calhoun or bad Calhoun, good Swartwout or 
bad Swartwout, anything or nothing — 3-OiU- hireling is ever ready. All he cares lor is his 
tithe of the current plunder. Hill showed that Blair and Rives got enormous prices; and 
Blair and Rives, in the Globe, expended columns to prove that their predece.ssors had cheated 
still more steadily. Hill names one job that will cost $5.j3,000, or S33,4b0 per volume, and 
affirms that Blair had got over §200,000 since Van Buren left Washington, for printing, at 
prices higher than was charged in any odier city in the Union ; as also $400 lor every work- 
ing day of the four years that Van Buren was president, or over jjoO 1,000. I am but an 
adopted citizen, and therefore liable to be slighted here, for the act of God in fixing my birth 
place in Scotland. Besides, I am poor, with a large family struijgling tor a humble livelihood, 
and in the evening of life — but were I young, a native, and possessed of the means of making 
myself heard, 1 would raise such a dust about the ears of these mock democrats as might end 
in' improving the whole sj-.stem. Blair may have cleared $150,000 of prolits in one single 
year of Van Buren's term — I mean 1S,38, in which vear his receipts from the public exceeded 
■«:300000. 

*TiiE 200,000 MiMTiA SniRMK. — In December, 183P, Van Bnren, in his message to Congress, reconinn'iiiled 
Joel U. roiiiseU's plan for a new militia organization, in these words : "The present contlilmn ot the defences 
'• of our principal sea-ports and navy yards, as represented by the accompanying report of the secretary (if War, 
" calls fcr tlie early and serious attention of Congress ; and as connecting itself intimately with this subject, I 
" cannot recommend too strongly to your consideration 'I'lli; TLAN submitted by that officer for the re-organi- 
'zation of the miiitia of the United States." The plan was to divide the United States into eigirt militarv dis- 
tricts ; in Slime cases three or four states to form a district, and in others, sucli as New York, only one state : 
to organize the militia so as to have a body of 1-J.5U0 men in each district in active service, and as many nmre 
in reserve ; altogellier yuO,000 men were to he armed, equipped, drilled, and ready for war ; the presideni might 
call for and assemble such nuiiLbers as he pleased, twice a year, at such places as he chose within each dis- 
trict ; and when on service these men were to be " subject to the same rules and articles of wnr as troops of 
the U. S." This plan was very unpopular. N. V. stale was required to furnish 18,000 active men, and the<e 
men might have been ordered to assemble anywhere— ihe 3,000 actives (or the 8th district down at Diica, f(ir 
instance, just before an imporiant election. Why not turn them as ihe S80J,000 corps </f the X. Y. Cu-tnuu 
are turned, into political machines T This plan the Glol)e praised and Inlly endorsed, per order— the opposition 
circulated it far and wide— Van Buren found that it was hated— Ritchie wrote that it was Injuring the cau<e 
ill Virginia ; he next wrote Poinsett, that it was called a " tyrannical and oppressive " ►landing army of 200,- 
000, and bade him explain. This was In M in July, Van Buren himself look the field, and in a very long 



146 200,000 Mif.ITIA THK BLOODHOUNDS EDWIN CROSVvELL. 

the civil, naval, iiiililary, and diplomatic departments of the goverment, in Con- 
gress, in printing;, in the custom-houses, and in tiie Post Olfice, were mjver 
equalled on this continent, under lilce circumstances. The Globe, in 1839, 
ceased to defend the authorities in this particular, but on the 1st of May, toolc 
new ground, saying, " We challenge the whole corps of federal [opposition] 
" members to point out on the record of either house of Congress, a prodigal, 
" CORRUPT, LOG-ROLLLVG appropriation, which has not derived its principal sup- 
" port from that party in the House which is now raising the clamoi- about it in 
" the country."* Mr. Blair then gives hls account of what he justly calls " that 

letter to J. B. Cnry, of F.iizalieth city, pleaded that liis " knowledge nf military aflairs was very limited," that 
it was " Imt /a/f/j/ Ih.vt his attention had hcen drawn to this subject," that I'oin.-ett's pUm was not constllu- 
tiiinal, and -worse and Tcnrse that he had not approveil of it in his December iiiei^saire ! Here are his words : 
•'We have been compelled to see, not 1 should think, without shame and mortification on the part of every 
ingenuous mind, whatever may be his political preferences, the names of respectable citizens .subsci-ibed to 
sltttcmenls, that I had in my annual message expressed my approbation of a plan, which, not only hail never 
been submitted to me, but was not even matured until more than three months after the message was sent to 
Congress." Look at my quotation from his message, where he says, " I cannot recomviend too strongly to your 
consideration THE PLAN sulimitled '• by Poinsett. That was in Decendier, 1839. A'ow— July, 1840— he says 
Til 10 PL.\N was not then matured, and had not been submitted to him at all ! I ! 

Florida, as a territory, was under Van Buren's especial care. He got this same Poinsett to send to Cuba, for 
bloodhounds, as an auxiliary militia to hunt down the Indians and poor forlorn negroes whom oppression had 
driven among them. 

Joel K. Poinsett, War Secretary, to Brig. General Z. Taylor, commanding Army of the .South. Florida. 
" War Department, January ib, 1840. Sir: It is understood by the Department, although not officially in- 
formed of the fact, that the authorities of the Territory of Florida have iiiiporled a pack of bloodhounds I'rom 
the island of Cuba, and I think it projier to direct. In the event of those dogs being employed by any officer or 
officers under your command, that their use be confined altogether to tracking the Indians; and in order to 
insure this, and prevent tlie possibility of their injuring any iierson whatsoever, that Ihejv be muzzled when iu 
the tield, and held with a leash while' lidlowine the track of the enemy. J. R. POINSETT " 

Mr. Adams, in Congress, submitted the following resolution : ftesolved. That the Secretary of War be direct- 
ed to report to this Ilouse the natural, political, and martial history of the bloodhound, showing the peculiar 
fitness of that class of warriors to be the associates of the gallant army of the United States, specifying the nice 
discrimination of his scent between the blood of the freeman and the lilood of ihe slave^between the blood of 
the armed warrior and that of women and children — between the blood of the black, white, and colored men — 
between the blood of sav.age Seniinoles and that of the Anglo-Saxon Jiious Christian. Also, a statement of the 
number of bloodhounds and their conductors, imjiorled by this Government, or by the authorities of Florida, 
from the Island of Cuba, and the cost of that importation. Also whet.'ier :t further importation of the same 
heroic race into the State of Maine, to await the contingency of a contested Northeastern boundary question, 
is contemplated, or only to set an example to be followed by our possible adversary in the event of a conflict. 
Whether measures have lieen taken to secure exclusively to ourselves the employment of this auxiliary force, 
and whether he deems it exjiedient to extend to the said bloodhounds and their posterity the benetit of the 
pension l.iws. 

* Enwiv Croswkll and .Tohn V.\n" Buren. — Although these two pupils of the elder Van 
Buren and Riitler his partner, are at present .it variance, they have many points of resem- 
blance, and I ha\'e therefore ^iven a brief notice of them tof^^elher. Edwin Croswell is nearly 
titty years of a?<e — the son of a newspaper editor in Caiskill, where also he, hira.self, conducted 
a -weekly paper. One of liis brothers keeps a very pleasant hotel there, and the family are 
wealthy. Edwin took charjje of the Albany Arg'tis in 0^2'^. was then elected state printer, 
and lias kept his position, while advocafin'.j rotation in olhce to others, for twcnty-lwo years, 
excej)t about as many months, dnrint^ wliich Thurlovv' Weed, who bcsit-^ed and took liis for- 
tress by storm, held possession. Edwin Croswell married a daughter oi John Atiams, a law- 
yer in Catskill, who has been in Coneress and held various oflices. His nepiiew and busi- 
ness partner, Sherman f 'roswell. married her sister. From IHlH to 1K3H, Croswell followed 
Van Buren's lead iin))lieitly in ail ihiiisjs. In the matter of the snb-treasuiy, he submitted, as 
did Mairy — but the ill-luck of IHIO and 1814, the splitting up of parties, tiuough tlie slavery 
question, and the exposures made in my Lives of Hoyl and Butler, have helped to terminate 
an intimacy that was foimded solely on gain. There seemed to be a chatice of healing dilfer- 
ences, by giving Wrights editor, Cassidy, half the protits, and Sherman Cro.swell the other, 
but it fell through last February. I described Croswell iu bS-lIi as his political friends do 
now. O'SuUivan. in the iXews of Feb. '21, says, '-that in 18:]7, our parly did not throw offall 
of this conservaiisni. ImIwIii Croswell was as much ils master-spirit then as now ; as timid 
as any, as unsound as ;uiy. But the best office in the Union was floating amid the angry 
waters ; he clung to it with a deatli-giip, atid went with it to the bottom. But no'w, f^nrged to 
repldiun, because he can get no more, he .sutnmons his motley hosts of Con.servatism to the 
rally." Croswelfs emoluments, when he got oflice, as Leake's ]iartner, in \^2.'i, were small. 
S10,00a a year sufficed for printing in Iho.se days— but the expenditure gradually rose to 
S70.000 per'afuiiiin, all items included. His ivcei|)ls, from first to last, have Ken estimated by 
Flagg and others at a fiiillion of dollars. He had ail tlie printingof the .senate, the as.sembly,the 
executive, and the .stale dejiarlmenls, including laws, journals, legal notices, adverti,seinent..s, and, 
of cuurse, tlie private sale and adverli^ing id his paper, aud iiis business as a printer. He had 



EDWIN CROSWEI-L, OR JHE PRINCE OF PRINTERS. 147 

enormous and iniquitous waste of the public money ;" but the public vvillremem- 
be , that Van Buren had majorities in both houses, he had the means of investi- 
gating every dishonest charge, and he had sworn before God to veto every bill 
which he could not, on fall inquiry, deliht'rately approve. When, in an expen- 
diture of about 150 millions, Congress offered for Van Buren's approval, money 

the lion's share of the plunder levied by the regency, in the form of charters for banks, stock, 
&c. He dealt in public lands, he borrowed out the deposits, he .sold his dwelling-house, with 
only three walls, to Marcy, Flagg, Dix and Beardslcy, for the use of the governor, at $19,000 
— the governor would not set his foot into it, and it had to be resold at .i great loss — he was 
allowed enormous prices for his printing work, and many documents have passed through 
my hands where he made 100 pages otit of what would not have been 50 in the same type, if 
fairlv and economically printed — from those who had to give legal notices, a tax was levied of 
muclx more than they could have been as fully publislied for in other newspapers than the 
Argus — and the legislative report says, " This monopoly was .so perfect, that if any of the 
executive officers had a job of printing which a mechanic would offer to execute at half the 
price allowed in the contract, the wheels of retrenchment were firmly blocked by the preroga- 
tive of the State printer, secured to him by a law which could not be modified without the 
concurrence of the three branches of the law-making power.' Governors, judges, senators, 
presidents, mayors, democrats and doorkeepers changed places — Croswell seeme-d tlic only 
permanent personal institution in the state. I have always considered Weed's inroad as the 
equivalent at least of the battle of New Orleans — in st-atc printing. That enigma of a man, 
Col. Yoiuig, was loud and earnest in Croswelfs support, in 1839, in defiance of public opinion, 
his own principle of rotation, and his perfect knowledge of CroswelTs cunning, tricky, sor- 
did character. Croswell has paid Young off since, in abuse and exposure ; published his 
b-^gging letters for bank stock ; and is now endeavouring to keep him out of the convention. 
When the two stock-jobbing rascals. Senators Bishop and Kemble, were expo.sed as public 
cheats, Croswell .stuck to them like a brother to the very la.st. Bi.shop, has, I think, reap- 
peared on the stage. I am told he was in the Van Buren state convention at Syracuse iu 
ISH, and went first for Bouck, Wright being g;:^ his second choice. 

Among the official returns and estimates of Croswell's emoluments, are legislative printino^ 
^298,000— printing for canals and offices $88,000— publishing notices $120,000— printing re- 
vised statutes $15,000 — legal advertising S!>0,000— publishing contracts, &c. from post-office 
$10,000. (Benjamin F. Butler, besides his private practice, extracted from the merchants of 
this city and the executive, fees equal to about STO.OOO in a little over two years!) 

Croswell is not very popular, and finding he could not keep his office longer, he joined the 
■vv'higs and a part of the democrats, last March, in recommending that evcr}^hing printed offi- 
cially mav be henceforth done by contracts. If these who give out the contr;icts are honest 
and capnhlc,\\\eve v{\\\he a saving by this ; if not, not. CroswcllisaA«7(^fr in slate politics ; 
goes for Texas, slavery, Polk, Marcy, and Canada. Oregon, plunder, war; anything to make 
money. A hard money loco-foco is his detestation. He expressed a deep regret thrit such 
(i.scrcditable candidates as Slamm, of the Globe, and R. Townsend, had been nominated by 
Tammany Hall for the Assembly, in Oct. 1837, and turned up his nasal organ at ''the fric- 
tion,'' as he called some very worthy, honest friends of equal rights in this city. 

" New.spapers (says Hammond) are to political parties what working tools are to mechan- 
ics" — and Col. Duane, in I8l0, asked, " Why .should we censure the National Intelligencer 
for adapting itself to the style and temper of its congressional patrons'? Its exi.stence depends 
upon its obedience to the temporising and tricking schemes of the influential members of 
Congress. A paper published at Wa.shington is as much dependent on tlie inlluence of the 
leading members as the newspapers of London on the court ; and there are as strung inclina- 
tions to control and render the press sub.servient to views not purely public at the capitol, as 
at St. Stephen's." 

Some years ago, a democratic corporation of New York gave a S14,000 advertisement, be- 
tween the Evening Post and Nevr Era. The same information could have been better spread 
for $1,000, but it was a fee. So, too, the public administrator's three weeks' notice lately in 
the Globe daily, at a large expense, and many more such. 

The Custom-house here has its favorite presses. Unclaimed goods are advertised once 
in nine months, and sold. The notice of sale, if published thrice in the papers of large*;t cir- 
culation, might be useful. Hoyt made it politically u.seful. In the fall of 1840, Mumford'.s 
Standard, Bell's New Era, the Evening Post, and the Journal of Commerce, each adverlfsed 
these unclaimed packages for ONE MONTH, and received for so doing over $1800. When 
Hoyt was tried for embezzlement, the Post and Journal disposed of his case, interesting as ii 
was to merchants, in a very few lines. Is it not clear and evident that a convention, and ajl 
the manly intelligence and .sterling honesty of the commonwealth are wanted, to secure, if it 
be possible, permanent peace without overwhelming corruption, as its accompanymeiit '? 

John "Van Buren is, like Croswell, fond of money, but tie has the art of a seeming frank. 



146 JOHN .VAN BT_-i<KN, OH THE PRINCK OF i:^ POTiiE?.. 

w.. nf fortu-fnur ^^nl'ions which the e.xccitlve had not reguired, his duty, his 

r:!! ^^::s ^alt J^nJ::::: Sr^^ch .m he .vrote -approvea."^ 

;;;ri;m liberality .-inch ave nut "^;^^^^^-^^J,E-;^JSt;rSSStS'^ 
him^by other ^^^gionjm.volm^^^ ^^ ^.^ -^n-'^Jf 

presidency, ant. aJt.'i \k hat 'f ^ "f';;^^ '"''^ , •, .here swore to the identity of J. ^V . \V cl.l), 
Lne years ago on profl^sMonal ^^'"^'^f.;^^.' ^^^^ ^^ others. hcVas arrested lor 

by t'i^^-"'-i"S,«o that throi^h the ^^l^^^l^^^^^ii,, r.av be judged ofbvhis et- 
an American debt while m bnsto ^j^/f'?-"''? yj chancellor McCoun protected as lite- 
lers. which, though full oi blasphemy ^f/^^^^^^'^t an^^^ as he could, conceal from the 
vary property, «o tar a. to f »^-^" 'X, v^-t^ H^'^-ii Attorney General by that sy.- 
honesl people of the State hi. true ^^^'^^f^..^^^^^^^ core, and managed by " a le-.v 

,em of nomination whion as tae ^Pf ^^^f^ J' j^'' Jf^Cci upon any man who dares lo expoee 
SS^^iSSc^'Sn ^^iSy^t^^'X^-^c of rL-die.-matched in month 

''^''*'^ ^^ Mastiff, blood-hound, monifi-el i^rim, 

f 'ur and spaniel, hack and lym. 

Bobtnil-tvke and trundle-tail ; ' 

•♦ v,o^',. 'nnt .nvn I'l conccit niost hideous, whenever our 
:^^iSV:^^SrS S^^l^^u^iSr:ilf Xem ready to bear him down, if 

^-3:Si van Bureu^a.n.n^od ^.r^ney^n^^^ . 

bled in a private room Ihc \^}ll^^}^'^^l^^ '^'^o,, jj^ ,hc official vote, shows 91 meml,eis 
if added to U, not at that caucus, y.lo ^^^PP"'."^^;^^^ Statin- sv.stem this man got 02 vote, 
opposed to him, 40 lor lum ^l^^ and oon'atter deUvered a funeral eulogy on J.-x-l.- 
and a salary, ^f^ '•'•■'^' ^^^4V%a^"i to 'a^^ Nvith James McKown, lormerly and n.w 
son at the capitol. ^le «"^'^^^^/7°J''V' tt,,,; -,„ .^ A^^in- the district attorney tncre to lr\ 
againRecorder of Alba^;-wen|^ac^n tom^ ^^^^ ^.^ ^.^^ ^^ ^^,^^ ,„, ^^ 

poor Bou-hton and otne.b-ta.^eci ocou\ic ^^^ ^ , uo„„i,ton over again ; had a 

Wright ordered p.-.,vment-went clo^vn "/^^V--,, Bo i-ltOT's lawver, Van Buren being the r,g- 
row and boxing match with Ambrose Jo-^-^'-Jf ";!-?^°'^i ^^h' ,i ,. prisoner. ; the jurors and 
gressor ; insulted the court ; both were ^"! ^4 ™^s .opiM^^^^^^ F ^^^ j,V,.e(!- dmnnds,, 
witnesses, and case delayed ; B'J^tm ^a> m.vK ec V an^mi ^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ 




S-tSingras v^^Iuc. A fie prcUtction on the tittoi 

tains more trutli than poetry : _ ^.^^ j^^^,,^^^._^ ,„^. ,,,j.,, 

What : c,-.n'M tl..m luuse, ..ml sbull it tbm !■ v or "i .„ li uu hire, but cmul ,to ll.r n.;ui 

Tho.i lire not worthy of ihv l;.t|>or's lolri : u |,., mV, •- to lie. or loiifh thr liowinL' r.iii. 

Korlml it. tail John, provo .hy>-lf thy >'r. ^. )\ «,<■ ihv liailts ; -n.l i.u.^t 1 .i-l.l, that pla- 



riK! worl.l I. l.r..e''iirl. «ii<l h<:r <:hil.lr.;i. I.. ' . ihv time, "n.i leads iheu niiicli a- lr;i\ . 

Show thMlhrwan.l the sroMtMni..ic.:.n^n..-. i ■ 1 ■ ^ j^.^^^j j^^ 

* Extnivagance, he said, was not -V' ;-'^^^^ ren^Ss^l Onnl the bank uncon^'u - 
^-as reminded that Madisoa h^'l "o!.';^'^^'^^ J;„ ^JVn Jffin o^ and check national p n- 

lional. Who had equal ;"'\^"^.:^';^;'J,,^;;;? S '^ to aid his investigations, r.r 

fligar.y] No one. ^ I'^ '^'''^ 'l^*; ^ ''"\^ ^^^e of 1 s solemn pledge to defend the cu.im;- 
Z::^^Pl^rrri^^^ e!;;,j;:cS;:;;^of n.any m.llio^s,ior^he most wastetni pn. 



VAN BWREn's profligate EXPENDITURE AND PENURIOUSNESS. 149 

What says Clause 2dof § 7, art. 1, of the constitution 1 That ^^^^y j^f '' ^\^^|; 
before it become a U'.v, b. presented totne pres.dent: if h«„fPP Yd'nq OB 
si.rn it ; but it not, he shall relurn .t, xi^Uh hi3 object wm.^' HL HAD ^U UJ^ 
1 FOTiO VS Every prollis^UB vote had his wilhng signature ; and, in hi^ mcs- 
s^U of Dec' 1S39, this taithless seminel rephed to the pubHc n^urmurs against 
him that " no instance lus occurred since the establishment of the government, 
in which the Executive, ihou.h a component part of the legislative po^ver has 
interposed an objection to an appropriation bill on the sole ground o^ us exlraia- 
gance." Was not this calumniating oih.rs to shield his own misconduct . 



CHAPTER XXX. 



A Hint to President Polk how to stop the Speculators, and settle the Public 
Lands with hardy and happy Fanners. 

Edmund Burke, in his work on the French Revolution, condemned the 
sch-m° by which a paner circulation of 2o0 millions of dollars, founded on the 
confiscated lands of the'church and nobility, had been substituted for the mouey 
of the nation ; and wisely foretold, that " drawing out at discretion portions ot 
the confiscated lands for sale, and carrying on a process of continual transmu- 
tation of paper into land, and land into paper, would produce an oligarchy ot tae 
worst kind, and leave power in the hands of the managers of this unstable 
circulation.'' Burke, detested thtjse Batlerizing adventurers, and most truly re- 
marked as many farmers in America have felt since his doy, that '' Usurv is 
NOT A TUroR OF AGRICULTURE." Heaven save the Republic from such over- 
shadowing Land Companies as that of 1835, bv Wright, Butler and Van Buren ! 

T,r,..s and diea turned roand and oflsred as an apology that less profligate presidents had 
loTh'^a very particalar in their iaq .iries. Tais is old British tory extravagance with a 
v^n "- in'-p Geor-e IV. cjuld not have played his part mone royally. Whe.i Van Burea 
hid^a- -u b'lt one day go/ernor of N.mv York, he wrote Hoyt, " I canaot con.eat to contribuie 
h-ran-'-ict 'n m-Li' to tae prevalence of that g:eat pjlitical vice, a desire to sh m responsibi- 
litv " W'ri pes'd'at he sh'ifl-'d oS" the obli9;itijn of an oath to see ecoaoar.' pr^^ctised, by 
th° Dl-a of '' it is noU-j!shionabie to p.;t that part of the coastitution in force in alt^ral sense" 
It was lashio'iable for the executive to wiak at the profligate expenditare of Congress, the 
ra^Tio--s of which vo:3 themseives §16 a day in place ot ijS, la various forms-ana though 
4Ho 5 J in^mbers will be absent for months to-ether, every maa ot them la the teeth ot the 
Invv 0-- = o'lv from tae Q^st div of the session to the last, just as if they had been all m ^\ ash- 
i^ ^-'jn' a't^-aJin^ to their daty. Not long since, Mr. Bryaat mentioaed ia the Eveniag Post, 
th^t hilf "th^ cai?airxs and coaimanders of the navy were at home on their farms, or m other 
blsia^s3 and h-'d been so for manv years; which meant that some 70 men were receiv- 
ii- son'e $-2o0.fand others SlSOO a year each, tor nothing and getting unfit for sea service, 
in''o.tl-r thtt o-ov-rnmmt might have mlroaage, and be enabled to provide lali.iential lamilies 
xi'ltti idle andlitil rent livings at the public expense. This is far, far worse than even in Eng- 
Hnd-bit Van Buren sought not to provide a remedy. " Every public defaulter is not only a 
liar b It" is Dunishable for perjury,^' says Dr. Mayo of Va. Of the enormous embezzleoients 
mill - kaowa in Van Burea's time, was there evea one rascal punished 1 Pomdextev teds us 
that Woodbury was checked by the President when he ventured to threaten or interfere with the 
shaiT) practice of Jesse Hoyt ! ., , . . , . , ' v- i 

Compare this sickeaiag public profligacy with that mgramed avarice and meanness whicii 
could stand n- individuals, call them dogs and ivipostors, and groan in spirit for the risk of los- 
ino- a -"^S or $10 loan' [page 181], setting an attorney a-dunning after a few shillings— and 
fn^cro 2-)ll biddin? Hoyt's brother charge an account with i;^ one cent ! Jolm Van Buren, 
So^how keen he looks after the smallest difference in money! while S. T. Van Buren, an- 
other son liberallv bestows a S5 bill to set the New Era afloat as a democratic journal! 
Compare' these with the violation of an oath, the approbation of wholesale profligacy and ex- 
travagance, and acquit Van Buren if you can. 



150 



POLK AND GREELEY, OR THE WAY TO LAY OUT NEW STATES. 



'^ President Polk, in his message of last December, acknowledges the evils of 
the land system. These are his words : 

" It has been found by experience fhat in consequence of combinations of purcliasers and 
other causes, a very small quantity of the public lands, when sold at public auction, commands 
a higher price than the minimum rate established by law. The settlers on the public lands 
are, however, but rarely able to secure their homes and improvements at the public .sales at 
that rate ; becau.se the.se combmations, by means of the capital thev command, and their 
superior ability to purchase, render it impossible for the settler to compete with them in the 
market. By putting do mi all competition, these combinations of capitalists and speculator.s 
are usually enabled to purchase the lands, including the improvements of the settlers at the 
minimum price ol the Government, and either turn them out of their homes, or extort from 
them, according to their ability to pay, double or quadruple tlie amount paid for them to 
the Government. It is to the enterprisa and perseverance of the hardy pioneers of the West 
who penetrate the wilderness with their families, suffer the dangers, the privations and hard- 
ships attending the settlement of a new countrv, and prepare the way for the body of emi- 
grants who, m the course of a few years, usually follow tliem, that we' are, in a great de<^ree 
inaebted for the rapid extension and aggrandisement of our country. Experience has proved 
that no portion ol our population are more patriotic than the hardy and brave men of the fron- 
tier, or more ready to obey the call of their coimtrv, and to defend her rights and her honor 
whenever and by Mhatever enemy assailed. They should be protected from the graspin<' «pe- 
coilator, and secured, at the minimum price of the public lands, in the humble homes which 
they have improved by their labor."* 

* President Polk, if he were sincere, would see that a remedy was provided. Congress is 
with hira. Greeley tells u.s, in his Tribune, that " The diliiculty is not that the Public Lands 
are too dear, but that, cheap as they are, tho.-e %\ho most need Lands cannct set ihcm. vhile ihn<:r 
viio have no moral right to any may and do obtain Fixe Thmisand to Fifty T/wusand acres earn 
1 here are tens of thousands of worthv, willing citizens now in the New States wiwse worldh' 
goods are limited to a wife and three or four cliildren, an axe and two or thi-ee hoes, a cow 
and a P'g, with rude and scanty apparel, kitchen-ware, k.c. These men have not and cannot 
raise the ^200 required to buy 160 acres of Public Land : they think thev cannot make it by 
hiring out or working other men's land on shares, and though we think they iri<^ht \nth 
health, Irugality and good luck, we know the process is at belt a difficult and tedious'one " 
When shall we find such patriots (!) as Benton, Calhoun, Cass, Allen, Cambreleng and Polk 
eflectually interfering with this rascally system ? ' o , 

There are thousands of citizens requesting Congi-ess |2r "that the further sak or srantirKr 
^ot tlie Feopm: s L.vn-ds may be ivimediatdy stopped ; tiiat portions of the lands mav be laid 
g out in Farms and Lots; and that any landless person may be allowed to take passession 
^and live upon any one of the farms or lots so laid out, with the right to transifer Jiis or 
0= her possession to any person not possessed of other land."' I am in favor of this plan be- 
cause It is a real remedy. A free people, thus settled in the \\-est. would yield a rich return of 
prosperity, and their commerce would strengthen the older states, and be a new bond of union 
1 honor Messrs. Windt, Evans, Treadwell, Devyr, and their worthy comrades for their jierse- 
verance in kecpmg this real remedy before the people ; and deeply regret that Governor Wright 
and his advisers did not, at an early day, interpose their best efforts to redres.s the wron^^s of 
the anti-renters. Had they done that many months a^ro, the state prisons would have^had 
lewer tenants, and Mes.srs. Wright and Van Buren woiild not have found it necessary- to ob- 
ject to a state convention on account of the agitated condition of the public mind. 
Horace Greeley thus sums up the principles of the friends of land reform : 
"The Reformers demand that all monopoly of and .speculation m the Lands vet Public 
sha be stopped, henceforth and for ever. I'hey do not ask merely that landless men of to-dav 
shall be proyided with a Home, but that the best possible proyi.;ion shall be made for future 
generations also. Now this proposal to giye every landless man IGO acres of Public Land 
outright, and leave all the lands subject to unlimited speculation and monopoly would if suc- 
cessful, afford a little present gratilication and possibly relief at the expense of inhnite mise- 
ries and privation in future. Nearly all the Landless are needy ; many of them are improyi- 
rtent; not a lew are dissipated. To offer each a quarter section of Public Land as a free gift 
wi!h liberty to sell the fee simple to any one, would be simply enabling Uie speculator to ob- 
tain at second-hand lor a lew dollars what now costs him hundreds, and thus to monopolize 
Counties instead ol Townships. All this ground has been gone oyer once in the case ol Mili- 
tary Bounty Lands, which cost the soldiers an ample consideration in fatigue, privation and 
blood, and were in good part sold by them for a twentietii part of their value. Ten years 
alter they were granted or drawn, not one of the soldiers in ten held an acre of the^e laiids— 
probably few of them held any at all. To giye everybody who chooses a quarter section out- 
right the National Domain, with liberty to dispose of it and come again, is in effect to 
-squander that great Inheritance more wastefully than hitherto," 



THE 



LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE 



MARTIN VAN BUREN, 



AND HIS FRIENDS, FAMILY AND PUPILS. 



The compiler has made use of CAPITALS, small capitals, and italics, to draw the readers 
attention to particular words or passages in this correspondence, where the niamiscript was not 
so marked — and where the originals were thus distinguished, he has copied them literally. 



Butler to Iloyt. — Pender — Politics — Principle. 

[No. 1.1 Sandy Hill, March 17th, 1819, 

To J. HoYT, Albany. — Dear friend : The stage to-day was looked for with great anxiety by 
all the members of my household, as- we.entertained strong hopes that Pender, the black damsel, 
would make her appearance onjhe " llill" Jji3 the citizens denominate this great metropolis.) 
I presume, however, that she is either not to be had, or at least had not arrived at Albany when 
the stage left. I wish you to call at Levis the Barber's, Lodge street, and inquire whether any 
thing has been heard of her, or of the letter that was written her. And if she should present her- 
self, pray lose no time in sending her on as speedily as possible. 

I see that nothing of importance was done- by the Council — neither Judge nor Attorney Gene, 
ral hazarded. I suppose you are over head and ears in the ocean of political controversy, and 
I thought when I was with you last week that it would give me some pleasure to lend a hand in 
the warfare ; but upon better reflection, I think myself as well off where I am. Leaving to other 
and more ambitious spirits the guidance of the storms of party, I can look on, if not with perfect 
indifference, at least with calm security. For the prosperity of the old Republican Party, and of 
myfriends and patrons— FOR. THE SUCCESS OF PRINCIPLE AND THE OVERTHROW 
OF INTRIGUE AND CORRUPTION, my wishes will be ardent and sincere, hut the situa. 
lion in which I am placed will prevent me from conveying them so fully into action, as, under 
other circumstances, I should probably do. I have nothing to gain, and would lose much by be- 
coming an active partizan. 

Charles will kave here on Friday or Saturday. 

Mrs. Butler and her sister are in good health and spints, ana as well pleased as gloomy weather 
and poor help will allow them to be. 

I have been here a fortnight, and have not yet received a line from you. Pray write me, if it is 
only to say that you are in esse. Yours truly, BENJ. F. BUTLER. 

[In another handwriting.] — Mr. Hoy t do try to get Pender ; I am tired to death of cooking. 



Politics — Providence — the Preaching of tlic Gospel at Sandy Hill — Salvation. 

[No. 2.] Sandy Hill March 27th, 1819. 

[To same.] Dear Friend : I have written no less than six letters already to go by Mr. La- 
throp, aod all of them pretty long ones ; you may therefore suppose that I have bestowed about 



152 sutler's call to the tTNCON verted HOt'T— SANDY HILL. 

as much time on my correspondenfe, as the ordinary business of the day will permit. Yet I can* 
not suffer him to go without bearing my thanks fi<r your constant attention t> my concerns, and 
yoiirt-'mieavori to promote my interest and happiness. Your several l< tteis were perused with 
miicli pleasure. I shall e.xpect them to be continued, but at the SHme lime hope you will not im. 
pose toi) great ;i tax upon your time for the sake of keeping me advised of the various occurrences 
of the age. You know whit I mean precisely. Men of busim ss have not the leisure to be very 
constant correspondents, nor can it be expected from them. You have really a fine state of po- 
litical confusion at Albany. 1 think the situation of the Governor [Clinton] is daily becoming 
mure d. sperate. 

I think that I am not unmindful of the advantages of the situation in which I am placed, nor 
altogether destitute of gratitude for the ble.ssings which Providence has conferred on me. I ac- 
kn iwledge that the Bo^mty is great and the return small — But such is man — unworthy of any 
thing, and owing all that he possessc s to the goodness of his Creator ; he despises w hile he enjoys, 
and loiirets while he receives, fie expects the sun to rise and his wants to be supplied, but ho 
seldom asks for either, much le.=s frequently thanks HIM froiTi whom proceeds " every good and 
every perfect gift." And were it not that he causes the sun to shine on the " evil as well as on the 
good," gives to all " their meat in due season," and cares for those who care not and think not of 
him, there would be nothing to cheer and sustain a great portion of the human race. 

I am more and more pleased with my duties. They require industry and attention, but they 
give me more leisure than I had while in Albany, and furnish me more easily with sufficient to 
provide for my household. 

T/ie only difficidiy here is THE WANT OF the stated PREACHING OF THE GOSPf- L. 
Had we n failhjul and respectable minister, and were the people more anxious for and ut'eniite to 
religion, I -should have nothing to ask for, but the continuance nf health, to make this place delight- 
ful. The contrast between Albany and Sandy Hill in this particular is gieat. You do not at all 
estimate as y(iu ought, the peculiar privileges you enjoy. They are remarkably jrreaf — they are 
perhaps superior to those of any other place of its size — to the Christian — the Scholar — the Phi- 
lanthropist, their value is inestimable. But there are deeper and more solemn con-iderations con- 
hecffd with them. The Gospel is cither a " savor of life unto life," or of "death unto death." 
And how can those " escape who neglect so great salvation V 

Remember me to Morton and Birchard. Tell them I s-hould like to hear from them. 
What a bungling piece of work Mr. Loomis has made of my speech. It has mortified me ex- 
cessively to see so many stupid blundeis issued to the world rcith my name prefixed. Pray tell 
my friends that 1 lav no claims to the bantling in its present dress. 

Yours truly, BENJAMIN F. BUTLER. 



{To J. Iloyt) — Banking — Elections — Van Baren — Rural Life at Sandy Hill. 

[No. 3] Sajcdy Hir.L, May 4th. I8lf). 

De ir friend : T received yours of the Ist to-dny, and seize this moment of writing vou BEC.'^USE 
I CAN DO IT [N MY PRIVATE CAPACITY, and xoithnut reference to my official character. 

For the last fortnii/ht I have had various concerns to attend to, which have rendered it impossible 
for me to say more in my epistles than necessity required — such as Gardening and Banking — 
Working about the d .or-yard and Paying Specie— Mending Fences, and SIGNING NOTES, 
&c., &c., interspersid occasionally with Law and Politics. 

In the meantime I have received several cominunicafions from you for which you are entitled to 
my thanks, altho' some of thein took me considerable time to decipher. Pray write inore legibly for 
the future. Were it not that I have long known your " pothooks and trammells," I should be 
obliged to send some of them to the Delphic Oracle for his learned investigation. 

The Election Returns are so far unfavorable to the hopes of Mr. Clinton and his friends, and 
J presume his destiny is fixed. The federalists here put no candidates of their own in nomina. 
tion ; and with the exception of some intelligent men in the western part of this county, sup- 
ported the Clintonian ticket and carried the election. I voted for Senators, and offered to vote 
for members of Assetnbly, but after a long discussion of my and various arguments 

and opinions from lawyers and electioneerers, the board very gravely decided that I was not yet 
naturalized — in which I think it probable they were right. 

The Chancellor has really assumed i great deal in deciding against me. Please obtain a copy 
of the decretal order — not of his opinion, for I suppose that woidd take you a week to copy— and 
send by some perscm at your convenience. 

Upon what ground did he admit yon — as of rieht, or ex gratia ? I am glad that he has done 
it, and hope you may find it the harbinger of good fortune. 

What think you of the New Insolvent Law? Do you intend to proceed under it ? Or have 
you not philosophy enough to live poor all your life, with a millstone on your neck ? 

Did I understand you that A. H. V. B. was to remove to Albany ? If so, when docs he 
come, and how will it affect you "^ Hr can do no business of consequence at Hudson, neither is 



BUTLER ON BAKKIjN'G AKD RUKAL LIFE. 153 

he qualified for that of the Attorney General's department. How does the business get along, and 
what is the state, generally, of yoar ejectaieat suits? Are any of them to be tried ul these Cir- 
cuits or not '! I sometimes wished after my removal, that I could take a peep for a moment in 
the Registers, and engage again in the service of the Sovereign People — and so long had I been 
accustomed to the management of the Attorney GeneraV\}il. Van Bmen]'f! affairs ]iuhlic, privntc, 
and domestic, that i often thought that no one could attend to them but myself. 3Iij new avocations, 
however, have now become familiar and pleasant, and I can attend to them without troubling my. 
self about the bonds, mortgages, or ejectments of the Slate. 

I want very much to see yo i up here. The warm weather has brought on vegetation, and ren- 
dered the country quite inviting. Here we have 

" Flowers in tlie valley, siileiidor in the lieam, 
Health in the gale, and freshness in the streain." 

Here are pleasant walks and shady groves — rivers and cataracts — larks, robins, and grasshop- 
pers — fine blooming damsels and healthy yeomen. 

Our place is delightfully romantic — you may stroll on the banks of the Hudson — view the 
mountains where it takes its rise — and listen to the incessant roar of Baker's Fall's. In all the 
month of June, I shall look for you, and hope my expectations will not be fruitless. 

There are a dozen or more of my young friends whom I should be happy to see in the course 
of the summer, and if anything on my part can induce them to (^esert the sultry streets of Albany 
for a week or two, I shall hope fir the pleasure of their society at Sandy Hill. 

There is but little Law Business doing here. If I was dependant on that I should have had 
the horrors long ago. Peihaps, however, it may be as good here as at Albany, or at any other 
place. I read more than 1 did while with you, and shall continue in the professi'in even if 1 neglect 
the practice. [Here fallow instructions about Mr. Van Buren and his matters.] 

I believe I have never told ytiu that Porter discharged Van Rensselare without my knowledge, 
agency or interference, directly or indirectly, and I knew nothing of it until he told me what he 
bad done. You can't say this is not long enough. Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 



To Jesse Hnyi, on Banking, Specie, Law, S^c. 

[No 4.] Washington and Warren Bank, Sandy Hill, May 8ih, 1819. Dear Sir: I send 
by Mr Skinner a pnck;ige and letter for Mr. Barker, which send as usual. I hear that he has 
had a demonstration {us Packenham and Co. would have said,) made upon him this week, which 
was m inlully rep' lied. My secretary being otherwise engaged, deprives you of the pleasure of 
receiving thjs interesting epistle in her "own proper handwiiting." 

Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 

Washington and Warren Bank, Sandy Hili, May 15th 1819. Dear Sir: I .'end by Mr. 
Baird, in current and uncurrent notes, $1100 — J. &, F. Baird's check, $1 100 — which litter please 
c illect, ad. I to the c ish, and send all to Mr. Jacob B;irker. I wrote yesterday per Mr. B;iker, 
and forw irded a package. Was it received ? The keg of specie was left by accident at Water- 
ford, but is expected to-day. I am in no want of it, and shall suffer no inconvenience from 
the delay. Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER." 

[No. 5.] " I send you by Mr. Biin, $3500, in current notes, to be forwarded to Mr. Barker. 
I have no time to write him by this conveyance. Please drop a line mentioning that I have re- 
ceived the keg of specie and placed the amount to the credit of the E. Bank, and also advising 
him of this remittance." 

[No. 6.] M^iy 29 — '' I sued S. S. L * * * by bill, sometime since. He persuaded me by 
variou", repeater), and pressing solicitations, to give him time till 1st of May. He has not paid, 
and will not. Please draw a cognovit f(,r $63,50, the amount, obtain his signature, and let the 
judgment be forthwith entered. 1 send narr. and note, and Charles will do the labor under your 
dirtction. B, p. BUTLER." 

To Jesse Hoyt, on Banking, and various kinds of Currency. 

[No. 7.1 WASHiwTo>r ANn Warren Bank, Sandy Hill, June 2 I, 1819— Dear Sir: T seni 
you by Mr. S. M. Hitchcock two sealed packages containing in the two. Current Notes $5150 
—Do. checks on Bank of Albany $495— Uncurrent notes $1750.— $7325. Please collect 
the checks, make np cnsh in a package, and send all to Mr. Barker. Perhnps it would he b'-st 
to put the whole into one envelope without disturbing the pfickases that I have arranged. The 
largest. 1 had on hand a week ago, hut have not been able to send it till mw. One of the checks 
U no! pay.-ible until the 5ih, but perhaps ygu can get the money in time for the Boat which le'.ve» 
Albany on that day. Yours very truly, B. F. BUTLER, 



154 I HAVE NO MONEY BUT WHAT IS TOO GOOD FOR THEM — JACOB BARKER. 

[No. 8.] Sandv Hill, June 3d, 1819. — fear Sir: I send you $96,25 to be applied as fol- 
lows— N R bal. of my ate. $33,28 — E. & E. E. do. $10,06. 

[Ne.\t he names. " Stafford &. Spencer, bal. of my ate. $40 — L. & L. Vankleeck &. Co. 
$40" — which two last sums he erases, and remarks — " These I believe I shall not send till nex^- 
week, as I have no money but ivhat is TOO GOOD FOR THEM."] Draw accounts in full for 
ever and ever from the begiiming of the world to this day, and 1 will pay no more debts of its 
contracting, 9,91. The Attorney General for costs received 3d May (capias not served) §43. 
Please take receipts from all the above creditors of mine. B. F. B. 



To J. Hoyt, on Law, Charles Butler, Col. Pitcher, Barker, the Niagara Bank, and Van Burcn. 

[No. 9.] Sandy Hill, June 5th, 1819. 

Dear Sir : I have yours of the 31st ult., 1st inst., and also one by Mr. Gifford. I shall en- 
deavor as soon as possible to send you some papers in these Chancery causes. I do regret that 
I did not know that Mr. V. B. was about attending the June term of the Court of Chancery. I 
might have had all my business in train for it. I wish you to tell Judge Beekman that the logs 
are nearly all sawed, and will be probably carried off by Hitchcock next week. If he wishes 
any thing done now it must be directed by the Tuesday mail, or there will be no hold on the 
property. Is it your opinion that the writ de proprietate probanda cannot issue until the alias 
plaint, or that it may issue upon the first writ in replevin, or the first plaint ? I suppose, as I 
wrote you before, by my Books, that it issues forthwith on the plaint before the plaint is returna- 
ble, but not until the alias writ of Replevin? Please look at Fitzherbert's Nat. Brev., Dalton'a 
Sheriff, &c., 1 am sure your library will tell. I shall send a witness and only one, for I can find 

no more, in the cause, viz: John Sheldon, next week, if they can examine liim in Mr. 

Van Buren's absence, * * * * 

I have not been in court but little, either Common Pleas, or Circuit — having had a great deal 
to do in the Bank, and in my Law Business. I want a clerk very much, and as soon as Charles's 
company will be convenient shall send for him. If he gets over his foolish, hair brained 
projects, I shall keep him with me, for I think he ought to be under the eye of some person who 
can manage him. 

He has some talents, but is rather overcharged with false pride, squeamish sensibility and ill 
guided ambition. I have been obliged to tell him very plainly what I thought of his style of 
writing and modes of thought — the first, like the latter, is frothy and bombastic — indeed, 
precisely like a boy of 18 of some genius, but that untutored and misdirected. I hope you got my 
package by Hitchcock. I have now $3000 in current notes, received since Wednesday, which 
I would send by Colonel Pitcher, 7cho conveys this, but he starts from here on foot, qnd goes on 
a raftirom Fort Miller, and though an honest man might be robbed or knocked overboard. I 
shall keep it till ne.xt week Send the enclosed letter to Jacob Barker by first mail — to my 
father put in the P. 0., Monday evening. I forgot it to-day. That to Goodenow send by a 
private hand. 

/ am unable to say anything now ABOUT THE NIAGARA BANK— onZ?/ that if Mr. B., 
[meaning Jacob Barker], could be sure of life, he could make it a profitable concern — but has, 
in my opinion, irons enough in the fire, already, for one man. But then he's A HOST himself. 
// he gets the stock, you 7nust stand ready to interpose a claim for the management of the bust, 
ness — that is — if you would be willing to accept such a place. He would require some one 
that he could repose confidence in to take charge of it. Though I have no idea that he will get 
it. " Double, double — toil and trouble," appears to be the order of the day in the commercial 
and financial world — where it will land us 1 am unable to say. * « * * 

You say my Chancery business is attended to. How ? Can you tell me whether Mr. 

or Mr. has seen the Attorney General about the Factory cause, and what was the Attor- 
ney General's opinion as to their issuing e.\ecution ? I am so much perplexed with anxiety and 
apprehension about my unfinished business, that I would gladly resign the whole. The Attorney 
General [Mr. M. Vanburen] is never at home — and when he is, I am so far from him, that I 
cannot have that direct and constant communication which the interests of our clients demand. 
One thing I most earnestly desire of you, and that is to forward me all notices, papers, ifcc, 
that may be served on Mr. V. B. [Van Buren] as my agent. He would never think of it him- 
self, and my clients might be kicked out of court before I knew it. 1 shall make no more com- 
plaints about your bad writing, tliough your scrawls are most infamous, after the capers I have 
cut in this epistle. Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 

To Jesse Hoyt, on a Banker^s Ways and Means. 

[No. 10. 1 WASHiMiToN .\.\i) W.\KRE.v Bank, Sandy Hill, Juuc 9th, 1819. 

Dear Sir : I am almost wholly destitute of Washington and Warren notes, and shall un- 
doubtedly have occasion for some before I can be furnished with a supply from New York by 



BUTLER, BAKKEK, IIOYT AND VAN BUREN S OLD BUFFALO BANK. 155 

Mr. Barker. If you have authority from him to obtain from the Mechanics and Farmers' Bank 
the packages from those Bank? which draw on I\Ir. Barker, which I presume is the case, for the 
purpose of forwarding to New York, you will please send me by first safe conveyaiice One 
thousand five hundred dollars in the common notes of this Bank, which will answer me for ex- 
changing until 1 can hear from Mr. B., of all which you will advise him. If, however, you 
should receii'e from New York a supply of our notes, in sheets, or otherwise, for this Bank,' you 
will not interfere with the packages at the M. & F. Bank. 

Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 

P. S. If I send any papers by Mrs. Coffin and her son, I shall direct them, if they do not see 
you, to be left at Wiswall's store. They will stop at Troy for the night and may not be at Al- 
bany but a tew minutes. I hear that a Mr. Clark from this villai,'e starts for Albany lo.day ; if 
he does I shall send by him, and he would be a good person to send me the W. and W notes 
by. Upon reflection, I enclose a check on the M. & F. Bank, for $450, drawn by Abraham 
Marthnar, endorsed by Uriah Marvin and Jeremy Rockwell, and also made payable by me to 
your order. Please present and collect it, and keep the amount until vou receive a packac^e 
Irom me, when yon will forward it to Mr. Barker. ' ^ 

If the check is not paid, please give notice thereof by mail instanter to all the parties. Mart- 
Img I do not know — neither can I learn his residence, Marvin you ktiow — Rockwell lives 
at Hadley, Saratoga County, I intended to have sent the check to-day by a private hand, but 
to guard against accident, think it safest to forward by mail, being the first post after its receipt. 

B. F. B. 

To Jesse Hoyt, at Albany, on his fitness to be Cashier of the Buffalo Bank. 
[No. 11.] [per Mr. Thurman, from Sandy Hir.L,] June 11, 1819 

Aof D mJ received a letter from Mr, Barker, m'-ntioniug the subject of the N[AG. 

AKA BANK, and requesting my opinion of a certain friend of mine, for CASHIER provi- 
ded he should conclude to purchase the stock— <« which I have replied as follows •— ' 

" I am happy to hear, by your letter, that in the event of your engaging in the Niaa-ara Rank 
you have thought of MY FRIEND l(OYT,fo,- Cashier, I kno,v of no person within the cl^i:- 
oj my acquaintance whom I could recommend with equal confidence for that situntinv HJ^ 
INTEGRITY ZEAL AND INDUSTRY, would, I am confident, insure hhn j'^m a'p'obadof 
and esteem. There can be no doubt of his being amply qualified for the task. His acquain" 
tance with business is general, and extensive, and for perseverance and activity I know of no one 
who surpasses him. His experience in Mercantile business, would alone have qualified him for 
the place, but in additition to that he hns the advantage of some considerable acquaintance with 
the business of banking, from his employment last year in the Mechanics and Farmers' Bank 
1 have known him lor several years ; intimately, for about three. After the unfortunate ter 
mination of his Mercantile concerns, instead of spending his time in idleness, or gimri'r wav t'„ 
despair or dissipation, which is commonly the case in SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES he^resolved 
lorthwith to enter into employment of some kind or other ; and, as nothing offered by which he 
could do better, he commenced the study of the law. All his friends, (and I amon<^sf the rest > 
thought this a very Jorlorn hope, for such had been his previous active life, and so long was his 
term ofstuay, that I considered it absolutely impossible for him to confine himself to so irksomP 
an employment as a clerkship in a law oflice, without any prospect of a speedy admission either 
o the practice or the profits of the profession. He was for nearly three years in mv office and 
tor fidelity and attention, perseverance and application, the very best clerk I ever met with T 
consider him perjectly competent to examine {a) into the affairs of the Bank of Buffalo and ^Ivp 
you an accurate and judicious account of every thing that relates to it. It is needless for me fo 
say that I ieel a deep interest in his prosperity, and that nothing would give me <rreater oleasurP 
than to see him placed in such a situation as would give him a competent suppon • but uerhans 
It may be necessary to satisfy you that my opinion of his merits is not overrated. I acknovvSe 
that I am his friend and I know that friends, like lovers, are a little blind to the faults of thoE 
they esteem, but I believe I may safely refer you to any person acquainted with Mr. Hoyt for a 
confirmation ot what I have said," ^^^y^, lor a 

(rt) This is in reply to a suggestion about sending you up to investigate the business nrpnar 

atory to a decision on the subject. I have sent my brief in J^ cause%o New ?ork LTwS 

^ ™'"^- Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 

[No. 12.] June 14. I send you by J. L. Thurman, Esq., a package for Mr. Barker conta^ 
ings m current notes, $2,200. I have received yours by Mr. Clark, with $1,300 in W and w] 



J56 THE IMMORAL TENDENCIES OF MONEY CHANGING. 

To Hoyt, on Law, Strawberries, Sturtevant, and Mrs. Olcott. 
^ - . Pandy Hill, June loih, 1819. 

Dear Frieid: I am very much indebted to you for your elaborate and very learned opimon 

^£:Ss-TbZSooS^^^^^^ 

you,, altho' u p^l^ a^ery en^t^P;;*- ^^^^ SJSuc^ltl^f lo ^'Z^^. 
rinlbr : S uf tl- sh^f lars\rb:rnL^e .n abundat.e ; and du„ ., tbat .ason 
should like to see our friends. If Charles :s at Albany ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^f i? BUTLER 
^'p 's''"lf you have any money to send me, I would not advise you t; send it by Mr. S. 

[Before Mr. Butlers postscript I find a postscript by Mrs. ^^^1- .Win at^^^ 
she says-" I repeat the question ' When are you coming up V We N^^an to ?^^ V^"^ Jj^'^i^^^;^^ 
and hope for the pleasure before many weeks expu-e. It yoii ever ^f^^ ^J^ h'. no and pleasu^^^ 
of seein- Mrs. Ok:ott, I wish you would presem my love to her. and tell her I f ^" A^;'^'^ ";>- 
s If w th the hope that she will come up to Sandy IltH, and see h- country lo^k.h^e^ ^^e 

have a plenty ot^o.k and soon shall have ^^^^^^^^ ^ZJS^ th^-iequeS' ru^ 
anxiety to have the Albany Banker s wile up at Sandy Hill is e.xpiameu uy h 

by Olcott on Butler, and their angry correspondence.— W. U. IM.J 

To Hoyt, shewing his plan of meeting a run for Specie. 
rxT_ 141 Washington and Warren Bank, Sandy Hill, Junt 21. 1810 

Dp ,r Sir- Mv letter of ve^^terday informed you that I was engaged in a rnnmng H^X with a 
scua 1 on rom Commodore'wiswnll's fleet. I send you by Mr. B. Win,, ^900 m Troy. Lan- 
BiSr. and Albanv bills, which I wish you if possihle to convert .nto specie 1 do nor know that 
I shall need it, but it" will be sufficient with wh ,t I have, to teaze the enemy for the whole week. 
f he hould m .intain his ground for so long a time. Mr. Wing wUl wan for .he spece. 

Ichould suppose .lu,t so small a sum could easily be procured, pspecially if yu divide the 
amount ay $/oO for Mechanics and Farmers' Bank and 82U0 for ,he o.her« I do no, wish , 
n.r.bat^l tm in want of it to meet a demand on the Bank. 7 wish you to say <a the bank 
hat vou warn SM.^LL CHANGK ; and for thnt yon will give them curretit bills. If you can 
obtain $600 it will answer the purpose, and if small money is not to be had anythmg else wiU 



If you "re unable to obtain the amount of $600 in Abany^ou will please select the notesof the 
two Baraks of Troy, and direct Mr. Wing to call at those Banks with their respective notes, and 
r^ues .hem to furbish him with small money for change, and if they retuse, to demand specie 
JciJe him written directions.) The other money in the pad.age you may keep to be sent to Mr. 

^fshall wHte 'y^" by the Wednesday mail, and shall also enclose a letter for Mr. Barker, which 
it would be iesi'rable^to have sent by Thursday's boat. You will p.-ob.bly ensure ns gomg -here 
Vf vo.. call at the P. 0. early on Thursday morning and reguest them to open the Northern Mail. 
teeJ: that generally the^ leave it until after the boat has^e^vhich is vegi.ur.ti.^t^o m^e. 

^ ry Sandy Hill, June 21st, 1819. 

Diar'sir Bv the enclosed (which please read, and after that wafer and send by Wednesday's 
boJ^);.u.;/i/Iel the situation of affairs here. If Commodore W. ^'^f^^^^^^^'^^^l^^. 
vnn.a«eou<. olecse correct it. I did not offer, as before to Allen, to pay him one bill at a time 
'of S^miSay- :;: eS him a large amount of specie, which lie ^^-'^-^j^.-^Si^T plearso 
If yuu think that you can get the specie for my notes, whicn vv.;^^ be chiefly T.oy, &c., please 
inform Mr. Barker. Mr. Bacon is the person who brought ^;^ JJO^j^^ g P BUTLER. 

On seeming to pay at a Bank— Gilchrist outwitted. 
fNo 16 1 Washington and Warren Bank, Sandy Hill. Wednesday morning, June 23. 18 19. 
J T i. i> 1 Po^ N»«. V.,rk 1 Dear Sir »" * * * 1 have re.ieemed in the whole $iS\), 
[ToJacobBarker Eq NewY^^^^^^^^ i„ ,^,„ ehnnge. 

1";^ '^%7 ^ndCTrancs anfw in gold. With this force I ran wi.h certainty sus,»in 
Sf :n;n s/^nSfy't^orn^nTand bf iatT no doubt I shall have a further supply o. 

"'Tinir y^;'n"°opy o^ Mr.^Olcmi', letter. Thia is a new proof of the wavcrin, policy o^ .hnt 
B m' andol he iSe r< linncc to be plnced on Mr Olcotfs professions or e.igng.ments for he 

•flii a «f i^ «wa acwrU ;o m im .priag. iha; 1 might at any time draw «o yuu at af.u> rf«i. 



BUTLER REBUKES THE AVARICIOUS BILL-liOLDERS— ' WE PAY IN SPECIE.' 157 

ifht if I chose so to do ***** I have this morning had two small sums of our notes 
presented, the one for 875-the other for !S91-both from Albany ; and both enclosed to Mr 
Raird with a request that he would present them immediately, and that the credit of the hanic 
was completely down, which lous (he cause of their sending them up. I shall pay these, because 
the money will go down by the mail to-day and may quiet the apprehe<isiouof some persons who 
7 J /; r.„,-.^ ^.,1,1 7,n- hut T shall reouest ^Ir. B. to decline any further commission of the 

^■:dUfifZ::::'Zh ^L:':iI^l put them on the .ame ground with 

THE OTHERS. ^ ., n , n j« Kt 

As the calls this weeli have assumed the characier oi a run on the Dank, yuu wul undoubt. 
ediy see the necessity of giving me a supply of specie as soon as possible. 

' yours truly, 13. i* . cL 1 ijbK. 

p S — Si-"-e writin" the above, Wiswall has shown me his money ; he has now $4800. Gil- 
christ has denianded hit bills. / told him I was ready to pay in specie, but commenced payrng 
WisicnU, he presenting his bills Jirst. Gilchrist iins n-solve d not to wait and returns m the stage. 

Olcott on pretended Banks and Bankers. 
rNo 17 "■ fMr Olcott to President Butler.]—" Mechanics' and Farmers' Bank, Albany, June 
21 1819 —Dear Sir : Wo send by the bearer, Mr. Gilchri-t, Fifty three hundred dollars of the 
Bills of voiir Bank, for redemption. You are probably aware of the deiennmation ot the Banka 
in this cMv to take no drafts from country banks on the city of New York ; and least you may 
think the* measure unfriendly or oppressive. I would mention that our object is to prev<^u country 
Bapk« from placing funds in N. Y., to speculate on their own depreciated paper That they do 
operate in this way we have good reason to suspect ; otherwise why ootneyphice funds at so 
g?eat a distance from the only spot where they PRETEND TO ^EDE'^M, or g,ve specie 
valie to their bills. I should be glad to make an exception ot your lia-.k, did no. our circum- 
stances require a prompt and speedy return, and I trust I am not mistaken in the belief that you 
will give our agent every facility and accomm odation. With great regara, &c. 

To lesse Hoyt, in which Mr. Butler deviates a little from the truth. 
fNo. 18.1 [per Mr. Hitchcock.] Sandy Hill, June 22, 1819. Tuesday evening 

Dear Sir : I have lini.hed mv second day's work with Wiswall. Have also sent you to-day 
Sg900 in current notes to be converted into specie, by Mr. Benj. V/ing. I requested you to p.o- 
fnvenpircably from the Banks there, but I now wish that you would convert it into Mechan- 
ics aild'^'rmerl' Bank notes, and demand the specie from them if they - •■-;^ jng to a vancc 
it promptly. Mr. Olcott has to-day sent up between $^00 and !r^6000 by Mi. Gilchust. Ht ar 
r ved here in the stase a little before two. Mr. Olcott wiite.s me a very fnendly letter, stating 
hat they will not take drafts on New York, and that they mean to make the coun ry Banks 
keep 'ieir funds at home. His messenger also refuses to take our notes payable m New York 
or those of the Exchange Bank. By the by I must be hard P>-«^;;^ b..cM;e ? " ;^^J J^^ '' ,^ ' J^^- 
for any one friend or foe-. I have told Mr. Gilchrist that I w^s READ\ TO I A'* bi l^Ldt., 
tor any one, mniu u, .u ^,tiv|p^ nTlPTNG RVNKING HOURS ; and that [ wouldpaii 

and would pay specie at AhU 1 IMtiib UUniiMU L..i.iMviiMj iiwiji>- , , ,^-, ,,;//■ 

nothing else. W'hethcr he will remain or not I do not \,no^. If he does, he '««•'« 7'' ''f/ 
1 through with Wiswall. I send ^250, in ciureut bills by ^^ «';^'^-^, ;;, ^^^^^^^^ ^^ 
<i^900, and mannued in the same manner. I did not mean to e^h on .vli. *:*-,^°.'/;^:'.'^^7-^\^" 
^uce his messace to-day I iute.id to pay him specie and to make h.ni furni.n it besides, loa 
W not TeUh^ lo. llJrrer. I must have SOME specie by Mr. IVing, and shall rely on you 
for it, five or si.K hundred dollars carries me safely* through the week. 

\ ours tniiy, b. r. Hi) I uriti. 

You rnay send a copy of the foregoing by Thursdays boat. 
Let tiie papers in Mr. Hitchcock's care be sent up. 

Jesse Hovt instructed to proclaim that the Bank could and would pay. 
rNo 19 1 W^siiiN.vr.ix & Warre.-. Bank, Sandv Hill. June 23. 1819. Wed. 9, A. r^I 
Dear Sir : Read 'the enclosed letter to Mr. Barker, seal and send it as soon as Po^^i^e. a>"i " 
the specie for the 81150 is not already on the was- ^^^^'^l^Pf^ff^^lT'^T. \^^^ 
\LL PERSONS THAT THE BANK HAS NOT STOPPED. AND \\ILL NOl blOf 
PAYMENT AND THAT WE PAY IN SPECIE. I presume the rumour oi the ailureof 
our Bank in Albany must have arisen from the reports of Wiswall. Let no one know the 

* His letter wa. written on Tue.Uy evenin,~four davs of the -'^^^J^ ^^^^^^'^^^^l^^X^ cldFa^ 
Gilchrist s.,,ecie. nn.i ' n.thin? eke '-tho' he hud '-^"^^ V '>".^„';': 1'?,^; .""l'^' „f tH Ic -n t ""d other, that ho w«. 
ofsmnll chnnjetocrryhiin safely through the week. .^^'^'••°"^-^«:^'\?;~"l^ '., ^e'c m^ I hrheve. He tell., 
nhle to pav mid would d.) so, w.is untrue. Mr Gilchrist is -..ow n Psew \ .)ri., •'i""'=" '".'■; ,,g i^ft Snr.dy 

th't o f r' wan Mv Itntler froni pnyins that he threatened to put ^^^XVlT<il^^^k\ tr cU i ^ quenion Vasi.'r 
Hdl. Whether the Wiswall protracted ptiymeat was anotner piou?, Scfi;i! and hnancml tr.cK, a n 
B^ked than answered 



158 UUTLEr's COUKAGE, cunning and CUUEENCV- — PLENTY OF CHAMPAIGN. 

amount of my calls, nor of my funds. If any specie comes from Mr. Barker, forward it by ex. 
press. Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 



To Hnyt, shttoing the President's nice sense of honor. 
[No. 20.] Sandy Hill, .hiiie 24, 1819. Thursday morning, lU minutes before 10. 

Dear Huyt : The intelli<;ence by Mr. Wing is une.xpected and unpleasant. 1 am sorry you 
did not send the specie. In the al)sence of all instructions from Mr. Barker for a fortnight, 1 
consider it my duty to continue paying. If I stop I may as well stop next week ns this. 1 can 
hold out through this week. My courage is undaunted, spirits not [at] all depressed, and if I die 
" I die with harness on my back,'' lighting as long as possible. 

(Favoured by Mr. Boyd.) Yours truly, B. F BUTLER. 

P. S. There are thousands of men and of paper here. Mr. Boyd had agreed to take my 

dratt on Jacob Barker, at 10 days'" sight. While he was gone to Baird's for the money, Wing 

arrived express. I could have given it afterwards, but CONCEIVING IT DISHONORABLE," 

TOLD HIM IN CONFIDENCE WHAT I HAD HEARD, and refused to give him the draft. 



To Iloyt, saying he would stop if his master so ordered. 
[No. 21.] Sandy Hill, June 25, 1819. 10 o'clock A. M. 

Dear Hoyt : I liave not yet stopped payment, and shall not (unless Mr. Barker directs me to do 
BO,) until 1 am obliged to give ujy the ship. Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 

[No. 22.] Washington and Warren Bank, Sandy Hill, June 26, 1819. 

Dear Sir- I enclose you a letter for Mr. Barker, which please read, and then coi)y. Send one 
copy to New York for Mr. Barker, and keep the other on hand for him, as he may be at .Albany be- 
fore the one sent to New York can reach him. You will perceiv ■ from the within what my situa. 
tion is. Would it not be folly for me to stop? Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 

P. S. Keep the situation of my funds secret. 



The Banker borrowing — the Bank will pay. President Butler to Mr. John Buird, Albany. 
[Favored by Mr. Hoyt. J 
[No. 23.] Washington and Warren Bank, Sandy Hill, June 26, 1819. 

Dear Sir : Availing myself of your friendly offer to loan me for the use of this Bank, four 
Tiiousand Dollars, I send you by Jesse Hoyt, n-^y private note for that sum, which he is authorized 
to fill up with such terms of piiyment ;is may be agreeable to you, and also 'wenty. six promissory 
notes amounting to more than Ten Thou.^and Dollars, which I am able to assure you are as good 
paper a.'S this state can afford, to be placed in your hands as collateral security for ihe prompt pay. 
ment of the loan. It is desirable to conclude this arrangement without delay, which is the cause 
of my addressing you at Albany. You may rely upon it that the Bank can and ■will continue 
its REDEMPTIONS. I am, dear sir, your friend and obedient servant. B. I'\ BUTLER. 



To Hoyt on a legal tender for the Albany Dutch. 
[No. 24.] [Favored by Caleb Baker, Esq ] Sandy Hill, June 2'Jth, 1819, 

Dear Hoyt : — The enclosed will show you how the " world wags.'' One of those persons that 
I told to wait until their turns came, was THE YOUNG PATROON, v,ho had 4 or $500 taken 
for rents due his father. 

If you know him — as I believe j'ou do — I wish you would FALL IN WITH HIM, and ask 
?iis opinion — / know it will be favorable although I did not pay him, because he sat within my 
counter and read the papers, AND DKANK WINE WITH ME FOR TWO OR THREE 
HOURS BEFORE THE BANK CLOSED, and saw every man who had come from a dis. 
tance, or was poor and needy, paid in specie without a moment's delay. 

Now if his opinion is friendly, I dare say it will pass current, AND BE A LEGAL TEN- 
DER in your DUTCH metropolis, and it would answer for CIRCULATION, &,c. Lei mc 
hear how everything goes — and what is said and done at Albany. 

Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 

Seal and send the enclosed after reading it. If the loan with Baird was concluded, and you 

♦ Mr. Biitler wus tlm PrHsident of n Bank clmrtcreJ by itie Lcfji.sluture, n lawyer, the student and parliier of At- 
torney (ieneral Van Uiireii, and truiunctoil the biifiiipss and knew or prelrMided to know the conditiim of Ihe in>ti- 
tutiun, whohc iiiites he >iiiii'd ami |)^ollli^Cll to )iay. If it was di.shonoralile to decrive hi.« friend Iloyd on 'I'lmrsday, 
us iibr>ve, wus it honorable or honest to a'-snre liaird on ."Saturday "that the Hank can ami will continue its re 
ileinptionii." Was it honest to dei-civu the Youn-: I'ntroon on Tnesclny, or lo get Mr. Iloyt to place in the .\lbnny 
Daily .\dvertiser the tissue ofartful untruths dati'd iil Sandy Hill on thnt day, anil which Mr. Butler niiplands Uoy't 
fir pnbliihin?, as bring " well tniiiil V I cannot conceive the idea of more direct, clear, systematic and well un- 
derstuuii friiud Ihiin i» exhibited unblushiujjly by Messrs Uutler and lloyt's transactions recorded on tlieso page*. 



BUTLER, VAN BCREN-LIKE, GULLS THE PEOPLE THROUGH THE PRESS. i59 

exoect the ■specie on Thureduy, yuu may perhaps ask Caleb Baker to stay for it. If not tell him 
SeLlvZnJri. A LOAD until next week. HE AND EVERY BODY ELSE Hunks I have 
TONS OF IT on the way. 

Hoyt and Butler's pious but well-timed falsehood. 

Mr. Hoyt got his friend Butler's letters published as puffs at Albany. " Your extract was well 
timed," says Butler, (July 3d.) Here is the extract. 

From the Albany Daily Admrtiser. 

[Washington and Warren Bank.]-Wednesday, 30th June 1819. Me^rs. Websters & Skin- 
ners • The following is an extract from a letter dated 0= Sandy Hill, .Tunc 29, 1819 If you tlmik 
its publication will b°e of any service to community, you will please to give it a place m your iiaper. 
rj^jj 05 1 Sakdy Hill, June, 29, 1819. 

The run~upon tlie bank still continues, but the alarm in this part of the country is wholly sub- 
sided The appearance nf Blr. Barker in good health and .spirits among vs, satispd the people 
that the Wnshln^lon and Warren BanJi loould sustain no loss by his temporary suspension. All 
are delighted with the accommodating disposition of Mr. Butler the Frcsident. When there 
were more calls than he could satisfy with his own hands, he called m his neighbors to assist hira 
in payino- And when there were more than all could attend to, he requested these persons that 
came wuth the bills, to lay them down and take as many dollars in specie as they lett m bills, 
and retire to crive room for others. Many came and saw the counter loaded down with gold and 
silver and went away satisfied that all was well, and that Sandy Hi7Z was not without its ■ grama 
of -old ' You may tell your Albany banks that they had better be a little more sparing of their 
denmiciations, for their own vaults may have to atone for the sins ot their keepers. Sell all the 
goods you can for these notes. But you had better not send up until the alarm has proved ground- 
les- as you may be trod on in the crowd. When you do send, however, you will always have 
the preference over brokers in being waited upon, for we do not much admire those leeches upon 
the ' body politic ' in this part of the country." 

[No, 25, a ] Steam Boat Richmond, June 28, 1819.— Sir : I left Sandy Hill yesterday. The 
Bank has not stopped payment— /< will not stop payment ; which please promulgate to prevent 
the brokers from speculating on the fears of the holders of the bank of Waehmgton and Warren. 
I shall commence discounting again (at the Exchange Bank,) within 60 days trotri the 23d oi 
j^jjjg JACOB BARKER. 

[No. 26.] 30, June, 1819.— Dear Hoyt : If the original arrives in time for the mail, this need 
not go.' ^"1 shall want the specie for Schuyler's note if paid. Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 

President Butler deceives the People, and denounces Chartered Monopolies. 
[No. 27.] [Per Mr. L. Clark.] Sandy Hill, July 1, 1819. 

To Jesse'lloyt.— Dear Sir : The enclosed you will send by the first boat, after reading it, &c. 
I send you 25 Times. You see how boldly we come out. I have deliberated long before I 
ventured it— but, as it's a part of my " budget of ways and means," have at length concluded 
to run the hazard.* If the specie for Schuyler's note could be obtained, you could send it by 
the bearer. Send the papers on Saturday. Tell me what you think of my bulletin 

Yours truly, B. r. BL ILER. 

♦President Butler's Manifesto, referreil to in the above letter, as a part of his "budget of ways and means," and 
issued after Mr. Barker's visit, was as fullows : 

\ From the Handij Hill Times, .Tuly% 18)0.] ,,„^..- 

The followine communication on the subject of the Bank at this place, may be rehed uj.on as coming I ROM 
AN OFFICLAL .SOURCE. 

I For the Times.] Washington and Warrkn BANK.-The excitement in relation to the paper ot the Wash- 
ington and Warren Bank, beginnin- to subside, perhaps it may not be ill timed to request the attention of the publu: 
to°a few prominent points, connected with the operations and character ot that institution. The sudden and unex- 
pected suspension of payment at the Excliange Bank, together with other causes |>roduced, very natiirally, stroiig 
suspicions ..f the solvency of the Washington and Warren Bank, which were greatly increased by the malicious 
prophecies and slanderous reports of persons who regarded its success with jealousy and hatred. The consequence 
was, the rapid and vexatious return of its notes, accompanied with demands tor sjiecie, or tor such bank paper as is 
equivalent thereto. Mr. Barker, foreseeing this result, and fearing that the bank might not he aole to withstand the 
first shock, although confident of ultimate success, very fairly assured the pubhc, in his address to them, hat the 
Washin>'ton and Warren notes would all he paid within sixttf days, without promising that the bank would not be 
compelled to suspend, for a short period, the payment of its notes. It was found, however, that a course so un- 
pleasant and distressing was unnecessary, and that the hank, by rcsortaifr to its legal ri^nUs, so Jar as U respects 
brokers and other hanks, would be able to ride out the gale, and thnt too without (iressing i";^e that owe the 
oank It has continued and mil continue its redemptions, and is abundantly able to pay all its debts, to the. utter- 
most farthinc" The debts due to the bank, amount to more than double their notes in circulation, and those 
debts are perfectly scciirc-'M^rs is perhaps scarcely one that will not ultimately be collected. How then can any 
one be a loser by the brink ! ., , , . . ■ . •• 1 

It is true that the Bank has not extended to speculators and bank aj^cnt-j. that prompt a'commodation which, 
under nourishing circumstances, would probably have been afforded • an.! it i.s al.v, true ih-it .t lias bon e.igiged, and 



160 SUTLER SADGERS BaOKERS, BULLIES THE BANKS, AND OBEYS BARKER. 

To Hoyt, on his preparaliona to badger the Board of Brokers. 

[X„. 28.] Sandy EIill, July 3J, 1819—11 A. M. 

DtAK Hoyt: All goes on well. Caleb arrived lust night, with the reiiiforcenitnt. Your 
"extract" tens well timed. I wi?h you wuuld keep the Albany merchants back. It's rather 
bad iiiendship to get our bills together, and post them up here, say 30 days sooner than they 
would otherwise covne. At the worst they would go into Brokers' hands, WHICH IS THE 
BEST PLACE IN THE WORLD FOR ME. I have received a very begging, coaxing letter 
fiom Mr. Olcott, but as IVistcnirs money is not half paid, I don't trouble myself about it. 

Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 



Tu Hoyt, at Albany. — Ought not the Public to wait awhile ? 
[No. 29.J [Sent per Mr. Hand.] Sandy Hill, July 7, 1819. 

Private and .Secret. — Dear Hoyt: I have paid since the Run commenced 8^000 and over. 
You know how much I had then. I HAVE A GREAT DEAL MORE NOW, and am in 
every respect better off. The reinforcement from Jacob Barker puts me out [of] danger. Have 
paid vpry liberally SINCE IT ARRIVED, BUT SHALL NOW HOLD UP. The public 
hMve been p.id over Si600U-the Brokers ,$3000. OUGHT NOT THE PUBLIC TO WAIT 
AWHILE? IVe have CROWED full enough for the present, therefore had better write no 
more for the papers. I shall add a note to " Equal Rights," which will gall the Mechanics' and 
Fi^rmcrs' Bank to the quick.* 

Finished last Saturday night by trying the replevin, at Glen's Falls— got home 1 o'clock, 
Sunday morning. Jury equally divided, 6 and 6 — Sheriff in our favor. Skinner and me both 
enmmcdup; suited zHyss// and everybody else. Noticed anew for Tuesday, 13— c'ear case ; 
f-hall certainly succeed— want the lease from Van Rensselaer ti> Caldwell, as they gave parol 
evident-e of it. Send it up in time. 

Paid Saturday, the 3d, 901 ; on Monday, 379 though the Bank was shut ; on Tuesday, 817. 

Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 



To Hoyt, on Law, Chancery, and suffering the People " to fret a little.''' 
[Ko. 30.] Sandy Hill, July 10th, 1819. 

Dear Sir : My present business is chancery. The enclosed bill I drew in great haste last night 
and this mornins-. I want it presented on Monday, and the motion made and urged on the 
{ground of the great injury to the Bank if those notes should be put in circulation. Whether 
Barker's assignment to this Bank is good or not, wc are entitled to the injunction. Whether 
the bills are his or ours, the Farmers' Bank have no right to use them; and if they do, we suffer 
ns> well as J. B. [Jacob Barker.] I want the bill copied, and a copy sent to Mr. Barker for Mr. 
Welli exnmin ition. 

If you get the injunction, show it first to the State Bank, and tell they follow next— then serve 
it on Farmers' BanK— then show to Lansingbnrgh, and tell thern they shall have the same, and 
had better keep the hills. That is, if you think it best to inform the others before I have made 
out bill? against thern. 

The M business I have neglected, and never can attend to it. Serve the petition — 

give the notice— fill up the proper dny— make the motion. You and the Attorney General [Mr. 
Van Buren,] draw the interrogatories and examine the witnesses. / cannot, and must rely 

" The Bank i3 safe, and I mean to keep it so. I WILL RATHER SUFFER THE PUB- 
LIC TO FRET A LITTLE, than hazard the safety of THE INSTITUTIO.N by paying out 
TOO FAST. 1 have paid this week $2500— $G00 of which was Walker. 

Yours truly. B. F. BUTLER. 

res- is ■now tn^aired in the pmjmmt of smnll spfcie. J::^ to persons of that description ; but it must nlwsys be re- 
inemhered. that tlit Farmcr.i. Mechanics. Travellers, and Tradesmen, who hare presented tts hills, have been paid 
in th' vwnl prompt and libn-nl manner. U miiiit ulso tje borne in mind, tliiil llie pressure nf the limes wmilil ol 
itself lie n fcntiic cn( excuse Inr tnariv tliin-rs. which, ot n more propitious moment, w mid be deemed inconsistent 
with the rules of niir und honorable business ; and above all. tlmt the course pursued in ibis p .rtu-iilnr '"''""Jlf; 
i^ iidoi ted for the express purpose, not of injurinif, but of indeninifyinfr the publ c. TME BANK IS ARM'-TJ 
I'.AY. mid intends t<j pay its notes, but it fiippuscs that the honest yeomanry, xcho compose tJic " hone and ^i.^tlc 
of the land, arc entitled to every acrommodntion. in preference to irreedy speculators and arrogant nwnted aristo- 
crictes. Those too who have "poisoned the chalice." have no reason to complain, if with retributive justice, it t« 
'presented to tlieir tips ;" nor even if they arc compelled to taste a portion of its contents. 

♦After the \V. P.nd VV. Bnnk hnd shut it* doors for .sevonl venrs nnd botiphtin it* own unsnlenhle pnper.it opened 

tlem i.piiin Jacob H.'rter, .Ic-sse H'>vt, Filzprcene H. lle.k. nnd tt. V- Butler Leinir still connected with it < n 

ihoSPlh ol DocemUr IK'', Mr. C, R. H rlier, rushier, *Mle from the Hank to Mr. IJutlcr. as f.. Hows :— Hear t-ir— 
Th» w.ll hehnnriel vm l.y.l. P a drill who eoes to Albonv fur the purpi.se of pr..curin2 some t|ic;cie. I want 
1.3100. and ,(.nd vou that n.nount in ln!l<.. Vr [.lucobj nnrkersavs he has written Mr. (■|<-olt nntbe subject. I 
jhoiild 'M t trouble j/oj/, hot want the bus ness done currcrtlv. nnd feui to trust it iibme with >,r. ..-blrriil. 1 send n 
dr^n r r l!^'300:i; w"hi'-h. if Mr. O. preferi, T .u will pleitta hand him— hut I should prefer h s taVing the notes. If 
you haT« to pive him the draft yau will pldn>e depeiil* the notes in the M. and f . Bant, to ">" "edit, wl.icli wiU 
iuak* a !seci« depoiit «f thot amount m Albuay. ^- K- UAUKSfi, Cas/utr 



BUTLER S PIETY, PASSION AND PEnPLEXITV—KENT AND CLINTON. 161 

P. S. — If Schuyler's note was payable here, I would take Washington and Warren gladly, but 
by his own act he has made it p lyable in Albany. Now let him pay what they will take, ex- 
cept I will take it in j Plattsburg and i current — ^ Burlington, J current. If he has our notes 
let him present them. It" not pnid, write Baird that it must be done forthwith, or he will be 
SUED — Baird will make him pay it. 

Chancellor Kent scolded — Clinton declared to be raving mad — " Fair and Proper calls" 
[No. 31.] Sandy Hill, July 14, 1819. 

To J. Hoyt. — Dear Sir : Send the enclosed by the boat to-morrow — all goes well. The 
Chancellor's decision, in my opinion is disgraceful, partial, unjustifiable — (inter nos.) I pay from 
$700 to $1000 daily— chiefly in specie— satisfying all FAIR AND PROPER calls. 

I yesterday tried the Replevin over again, and after a prodigious hard conflict obtained the 
inquisition. This secures the estate. The lease did not arrive in time for the trial, as I had it 
at Lake George. Got through summing up at 11 o'clock — Jury out till after 1, A. M. — tough 
business I can assure you. After Bank hours, rode through sun and dust to Lake George — 12 
miles — tried the cause — up till 2, A. M. — up again at ^ past 4 — home before bank hours. 

CLINTON IS RAVING MAD, BESIDE BEING A FOOL, But I have no time for more. 

Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 

Capt, Coffin's letter contains cash. Let me know whether the Comptroller found the account 
of public monies received by the Attorney General [M. V. Buren] during my agency, correct. I 
furnished it last mail. (Sent by Mr. Bacon.) 

"From Grave to Gay— from Lively to Severe." — " Orator Puff had two tones to his roice." 
[No. 32.] Jesse Hoyt, Esq., care of Jacob Barker, Esq., New York.* 

Sandy Hill, July 21, 1819. 
My Dear Sir: I condole with yuu most sincerely, I commend you to Him v\ho is able to 
bind up the broken heart — who alone can give you consolatii)n in your distress — whose will is 
righteous, and whose mercy is unbounded. I HAVE NO TIME FOR MORE. 

Yours most truly, B. F. BUTLER. 
Postscript. I have of this date written to Jacob Barker, Esq., stating my situation and pres- 
■ing him to furnish me one thousand dollars at least in specie, to reach me by the SOih inst. If 
my letters are not received, please inform him of this postscript, and add that it is absolutely 
necessary. 

To Hoyt, on paying in a slow way ! 
[No. 33.] Saratoga Springs, Ang. 24th, 1819. 

Dear Sir: » » » « # Your brother [Lorenzo Hoyt,] has charge of the 
Bink during my absence — Mr. BMrker left us this morning for the south. * * * » « The 
Bank will go on,paying daily, IN A SLOW WAY, until Mr. B. [Birker] i.'; able to give me 
some liberal assistance — and in the meantime I shall take it slow and easy for the future, without 
laboring as I have done for the two months past, which have been in every respect the most la- 
borious and perplexing of my life. I felicitate myself, however, with the reflection, that I have 
reliev"d MANY HUNDREDS of persons who v.'ould have been almost ruined if we had siopt 
as Mr. Barker advised me — that I have kept vp PARTIALLY the credit of ike paper [EF in 
the vicinity of the Bank, which in the event of stopping would have been at 50 or 60 par cent 
discount — and, that in all that I have done, I have been actuated by a sincere desire to promote 
the interests of my employer, and the welfare and preservation of the community. * * * * 

In haste, your friend, B. F. BUTLER. 

Preserve the Bank .'—Butler's character lowered — Hoyt exhorted to repentance — Sabbath 

Keeping — Wisdom's Ways. 
[Xo. 34.] [To Jesse Hoyt, Esq.] Sandy Hill, Nov. 16, 1819. 

My Dear Sir: Yours of the 11th is just received — I enclose a power of attorney which I pre- 
sume will answer. Your letter of the 5th was received last week ; but being called away for 
the two next days, and considerably engaged since my return, I had not found it convenient to 
acknowledge its receipt. I shall not pretend to deny your right to complain of my silence, but 
at the same time, I must retort the charge ; and I presume you will admit thnt there is full as 
much ground tor it in one case as in the other. I have no doubt of the multiplicity of your con. 
cerns, nor of your industry and perseverance ; and I hope most sincerely they will be rewarded 
by that success to which they are justly entitled ; but I believe you cannot have had so perplexing 
and arduous a tour of duty as mine has been for the last six months. Indeed, I am certain that 
no poor wight ever labored more sincerely for the public good, or received more of public censure 

♦When it became evident that Mr.Bnrker would neither purchase the "goodwill " of the broken Bonlj of Niagara, 
at BiifTalo, nor sustain the Washington and Warren Bank, Mr. Hoyt removed from Albany to New York to pran- 
iiM law, biiviDg tii&ea out UcsnceS) &s an attoro«y-at-Iaw, and as a soUcitor-in-dtancery. 



162 ins GAME OF PILLAGE GAINED, BUTLEU PREACHES TO B^OtHER 3ESSE. 

and abuse. For the last seven or eight weeks, however, we have had comparatively quiet times, 
and I have had some leisure for law reading and law labor. , . , , , . . i \ 

You are ri^ht in supposing that the late catastrophe (for I consider it the end oi that drama) 
in the Exchange Bank, is a common misfortune. To me especially it is a great one. I had 
cheerfully suffered the deprecmtion of OUR PAPER, that Mr. B. [Barker] might in the mean- 
time bend all his efforts to the Exchange Bank, and in the resumption of paymen there hoped 
for the most auspicious results. The matter is past mending, and no doubt it is all tor the best. 
We continue paying daily ui a small way. more to relieve the sufferings of communiiy than tor 
any other purpose. The credit of the paper is very low in this country-hardly any one takes 
it at par— and were it not for the small payments of which I spoke, no one of my neighbors 
would have any confidence in the ultimate solvency of the ^"^.'""'i^'l- |^"7,(^,7' '"'^'"^ 
%vhat has been done and what is now doing, that the intention is TO PREbERVL THE BAMi. 
are rather disposed to think favorably of the concern ; but their numbers are not great, tortu- 
natelv, however, by our redemptions and collections, we have got in nearly all the paper in cir- 
culation in this part of the State, and there is now buthttle more than half as nuich out as there 
was when the troubles commenced. The most interesting and gratifying part of your letter, was 
that in which you gave us reason to look for you here in December. We shall rely with cer- 
tainty on your coming up ; and if a cordial reception can make your visit a pleasant one, you 
will most assuredly find it so. Indeed, I can say most truly, there is no one ot my quovda7n 
friends that I am more anxious to see than yourself. By the bye, my character is so depreciated 
at Albany (according to report) that but few of my old acquaintances would acknowledge or le- 
ceive me. Some of them, I hear, have the kindness and condescension to compassionate and 
pity me, while others consider me full as bad as Jacob Barker, «hich in these days is considered 
a pretty severe specuiien of invective and reproach. So be it. 

They cannot rob me of free nature's grace, 
They cannot shut the windows of the sky, 
They cannot bar my constant feet to trace 
The woods and lawns, by living stream at eve ; 
Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave. 

I am sorry to observe that you are obliged to turn casuist in order to reconcile your Sunday 
labors to your own sense of duty. You may remember what Sir Mathew Hale said on that 
subject " That he tried both plans, and from experience could say, that no man ever gamed any- 
thinc' in the end, or furthered his busine.'^s, by attending to it on the Sabbath." 

I know that you have had many and severe misfortunes to contend with ; but I think there 13 
a better method of consolation to be found than the one you have adopted. No doubt the poig- 
nancy of distress is often lessened and destroyed by the hurry of business and the active employ, 
ment of the mind, and therefore those remedies should frequently be adopted— but no true con- 
solation can ever be derived from anything that requires the neglect of a religious duty. 1 he 
ways of wisdom, and of wisdom only, " are ways of pleasantness"— her paths, and hers only, 
" are paths of peace." Mrs. Butler .joins in affectionate remembrance. „ ,. n 

' Truly yours, B.r.b. 

Pious exhortations to Jesse Hoyt— Trouble at the Bank— The Attorney 7nakes his debut. 
[No 3.5 1 SANnv Hill, Dec. 17, 1819. My Dear Sir: * * [a private paragraph omit- 
led 1 * ' *' lam sensible you have had manv difficulties to contend with— many privations to 
endure-many afflictions to submit to-but that all has been right and jusl ho^^cver severe and 
Jamfulit may have seemed, is no less the acknowledgment of REASON than the dictate o 
REVELATION The former assures us that the BEING who formed and upholds the natural 
world, so full of order, regularity, aud excellence— who supports his creatures with every good ot 
Hfe-" who makes all nature beauty to the eye and music to the ear," must be Righteous and 
Benevolent ; while the latter represents him as vindicating the mysteries of His Providence by 
saving " What I do now thou knowest not, but thou shah know hcrcajter. ' „, ^ . , 

We have been much troubled by visitors at the Bank for the 10 days past. The Court of 
Common Pleas, which sat in the village a part of two weeks, has just adjourned You can hard- 
Iv conceive how much I was vexed and molested. Every man who owned a dollar ot our paper 
made a point of bringing it along. I made my debut as an attorney-was employed m two 
causes which I tried and argued, and had very good success. There is but little Inw business 
do^ng in this county. Such complaints you never heard from lawyers, of the dul ness of the 
tunes and the scarcity of money. Most truly yo urs, B. t . BU 1 Lti^ti. 

Butlers Pious Sympathy— JIallcck initiated in W. Jj W. Banking. 
rfjQ 36 1 Sandy Hill, Jan. 3, 1820. 

Dear Hoyt': Wc regret very much that Mr. Hallcck has made his visit, and is returriing with. 
out you ; * * * • • and our hopes that He " who tempers the wind to the 



THE JULIUS CESAR OF SANDV HILL MIGHT BE COCK ROBIN ' IN NEW-YORK. 163 

w.,h us . week, ana I „„., ,e.l|y ,.y ,h„ „, ,,„, b„„ gre.lly de thted wS, L m. 
tell you all aoout our Banking concern s.* 'kost trul y yours, R F BUTLER 

TnoTt f ^'-^"^'^'- ""'"^^ *^ '^'^ -^"^-^ C-- 0/ '^^-'^2/ //f«-/. « Bucktail-Self. 

Dear Friend : The release for Mr. Youle is enclosed IV. f. ^udso-v Feb. 7th, 1820. 

lage (the men ft for it being chifly BacltJL T.nd iTt, T i "u ^"»"«/*«'««er a< o„r viU 

* * * I am mi.rh r.hlioL^ f^ r , '"^ ^ therefore brought it with me. ***** 

Mr. Van W'stsfilf ;Xht Cfror;"' '''f.rf^'^\ O- ''V^^ l-'^r Isawat 
that burn" it is almost withouTarivIl ^uVT ^ {■ • .^^^ ^""g^ts that breathe and words 
have been guilty TcoTiideraWeneilL^'^^ pubhcations. I must confess that I 

THE ONLY PFRSONT /! A "5^''^*^"'^^.' ^"^^ ^^equent violations of punctuality. You are 

Not that I dis Ike tf e empCmlt oTh^ve Z£:^^:7^::^^:-Zl ^L''.:.:^^^^^""'^"^^- 

person. I have taken his office^Eut whe herl s3 fill his ni;."^ ^"^' ™T ^'' '"'''' ^^^er 
teen urged to hold myself in reservTunUlsltfa3 M ^ 'fTr '° t' ''"""• ^ *«"« 

friend of ours (M. vfn B^en) ^uU pS TemfinTnf wtrel'^ '" aTo1-£^' ,"''' "V"* 

frriir^^ttnti ^;si\::p'iiraist -hr ^-^ r-^ Haf /to- 'Xt^^ 

^erAap. ."^ ^ay „o< be too pre.mmpt.ourtoa^ireot^^^ ^ '^f^^"'^>' "'"J 

does not wish to have it known that he remove^to Nef York in fh. i,^^.''^^\Mr. Van Buren 
have not already heard of it. you will please^oLider wh J T ™ , Spring, therefore, if you 
Mr. Barker's misfortunes will preven yorfom SSn^ all the ^.' Vn T ""'' ■ I T ^'■^"' '^^' 
last saw you. Pray inform m'e all abLt ir\Tu'kToit ^i^reStTyl^^^ "'^" ' 

fKi-:rrsfr;^--s^^^^^ 

Hep S^tlSnpl^^^^^ Sm/ir i^pr-S Sl^^^^f^^ -^- 

strp:u;rcaVr:tLf ^^^' ^"' '^^^ ^""-^-^ -^^'^ ----^-^^^^ 

Education, habit, inclination and principle all conspire to inake me A BUCKTATT T t, 
anister views to gratify_„o resentments to satiate--«o other oVecthrTttt^n^' ■ T "" 
5?aie-therefore my endeavors shall be to confine mTself within the "1 ' f f "^. "^ ^^^ 
others what I would have them do to me •' ^ ^'^*'" '■"^''' °^ '^oing to 

.om« <me ;,«.<, and which v^i!l renTr^y prospects rathei. loo n? Z""'^^^^^*^,^", ^««* >»• /or 

I have advanced for . Were I troubCwirh nnh. poomy, owing to the large amoimt 

les^aboutit. .Stilllthinklcanhrtil^i^^'/l^rvlliS^^^^^^^^^ ^^ «- ^ ^'^-'^ care 

JS^- lfS:^r £t^- -S^^ Wn.ble proof of ego- 

Please present to Mr. Halleckmy best respects, and bSev^Te, deSr;Vou;s sL^rdy"'' ""'^^ ' 

- B. F. BUTLER. 

[i\0. OO.J 

My Dear Friend : I have been here for thr^^ «r <x, j ..r ^^^^^y, March 17, 1820. 

.h... *.. ./.,ee„ wMch «e iinifeS,;! o";x=^te:e:r,:ir,.rLret 

IX -."k? ''I'P =» memorandum of all the expm^ efvou^^re ,t 'TJ^^"" '° "^ ' "" ''''-' ''''' "fP^^^^'ty 
make suitable charge therefor. It is all for uccount of cornrr«Hnn. ^ k Y u°"' ''=i"^«=^'i°"^ you attend to, and 
cannot expect confidential services of this kind ?o be peZmed wkhouTjSng'^' °° '°"^''" "^""'^ »t°<=kholder. 

Your assured friend, F. G.' HALLECK, for Jacob Barker. 



J64 ALBANY POLITICIANS-LAW ^ LAW PAKTNERSHIPS-^VAN BUEEN ^ EtTTm. 

, ■ T i,ov^ hepn here but hear and talk politics. They oeem to 

Ipft you. I have done nothmg smce ^ ^^^^ ^een here but n^ p^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^^ 

engross the whole soul of every person I "^^^^.^T^^' ^/^JJ/gfl un heariily Bick of the eternal 

S'^^Lir;' '. i"t,nK£".r;oThtrr>s':;™. .„. ,.., .»« » »»-«^ 

,n-* Si., ■« .-./..d ».» '-""/ '"'^|"^7M°„2f i have consijered il important that I should 

have bee,, preparing for tl».ja»n,»t,» j,'J;;Z^,^ril^i;SJ^, ,„ i, , believe he doe. 
I do , tot re. precisely kn.>vv»l..t are M^ ,h/„,„me, ,n set.line „p hi. alTaira ,n 

himself. '•'?™7P"''7"„7'|°!,;]"'^''j,, Edmonds, who is now with him, ha. had some 

:;;;:vStiltl^hTm'o"„^l;L'°!;"."f »"-»« New Y.rk, »„, /*..» «, .,pr..».io.. 

any o.her P-'^'^^j-^..^ '^^J^J^'^^^;*^,^^^^^ in our county-many of .hem grct ^o./cr.-s.me 
increases. We ha e a greai nijuy '" > „nnnl«r nrpiiu'lpc asinnst the plofe^slon is 

^n^is^:::^^:^';^^:^::^;'::^.:'^::^^. si.^'. ;hin.< ^ ..rospeds .. 

- ,tHtne;^;;r.';;.U Vo'X"'"--" ^"w -" -"^-e »Vpr 'S' •- Bleeth.n 
vvil hfa erv Xr?onT The accounts from all p.rts are very favorabe n. the eU-o.j..n of 
ToLkins I c. pi^e i very certain. T.e ohi Lieutenant Goveruor. a. I und^st.jnd b.gm, 

"^?;ii=:; f-^:;=dt^:;;n n!::^-: Kt^ v.n ^e. h. ., y. 

dti nrrw at a del;!d ng^ it will be for the judiciiil character of our State It 

w 0^ o^r p ide JkI or,rament-but how are th. confidence and respect of ,he puh >c to be 
^^^reduh'n its me„.bers are suspected, tnuch less whea they are «-"|,-^^f-LER ' 
crimes and misdemeanors?" In truth, your very nncere fnend. 13. t. BU 1 LbK. 

To T Hovt Van Buren and Butler, Coumdlors and Attorneys at Law-Alhany-Providence 
^ " ' —Worth's Poema—Vander Heyden. 

.„ „„, Albany. May 27, 1820. 

AIv D^ar Sir: I have been here two or three days for the purpose of seeing Mr. Van Buren 

You may have heard that it was my intention to remove forthwith to Albany : .i not, I take 

^is occ i.m to inform you that / have agreed to resume the lara business J>.tk 3Ir. Van Buren 

and sh dl locate mvself in this place as speedily as possible alter the loth of ne.x month. I 

Jhink I have elery prospect I could desire. Mr. Van Buren says he w.U not abandon his pro- 

£L ; and f he remains in it he can get as much business as we can attend to He offers 

meoneholf of the Chancery, as well as the o'her busn,ess, whchyoa mil recollect is much 

ZZ' than our former term.; and as our Chancery Suits tcdlbe ihe v^st numerovsand 

pMle, it appears to me that I cannot but succeed. My adm.sston a« Counsellor w.l also 

S em; to attend to small motions in term, inquests at circm.s &c. 6.c. which, as my 

acmtainTarce is very general throughout the state, will be somethmg towards the current 

exoers sTihe yJr WUh the ntscstance of PROVIDENCE, / am fully resolved never 

nsZtoabalnor withdraw from my profession, and to pursue --^ a cou.se of s'udy mdus ry 

and perseverance >,e .hMl make me a lawyer in thne. ,. it is possible to "'"'^^^^ '^^, ""^ ,?! 

Buch materials as 1 am composed of. It is wi.h great reluctance that I leave S.mdy H.ll , 

,ha situ t of that most ch.nn.n. v.lla.e, the kinJne.ss of its in^^'"^'' '^"'^;/;-\„tA:.': J '7/, 

received every attention, and ABOVE ALL a sincere d.sire to comply with the icshes of our 

fder^M Biker, nil induced mo t. reu.nin. but I am satisfied that I at.ht not to p:,ss by he 

presVn oppor.uni.; of e.t.Voli.hmg myself in the profession. I wrote M. Bavker fo-m Sandy 

m but have not had the pUaeurc of hearing from him. FUatt inform hm that J wwA 



BUTLER TO QUIT SANDY HILL BANKING AND POLITICS FOH LAW. 165 

to resign on the l5tJ, June, and to leave the next day !/ I can. Every clay I procrastinate is 
an injury. We have so little lime allotted us in this world, and that little is so uncertain, that 
it becomes important to take it by the "forelock." 

I have just seen a poem by G. A. Worth, entitled "American Bards," which I have skimmed 
over with deep rearet. There is not a line of merit in the whole book. It would seem that 
genius declines a7id degenerates in tiie woods, for Worth, when in New York, was a fine 
writer— brilliant in prose, and more than tolerable in poetry. Even in the notes there is 
nothing of that vivacity and elegance which distinguished the Correctors. 

Our friend Van Der Heyden is looking out for the Clerk's OiSce, for the next Assembly. Do 
give him all the help you can. Horace Merchant is to be his deputy, so that the objection of 
Clark, that he is a raw hand, &.c. &c., is wholly obviated. Clark reports him as a federalist. 
Please contradict that falsehood. Van Der Heyden is a fine fellow and a man oi talents— and 
deserves encouragement, not only on that account but also for his filial and fraternal affection. 

I shall get to Albany in time to take the " laboring oar' in the Hart cause, and also in the 
Platiier suit, in both of which I shall probably be solicitor. And as for politics, I give you 
notice that I intend to leave you and the other champions to fight it out, having neither time 
nor inclination to buckle on the armor, though I may possibly always cany a small sword 
about me. Present my best respects to your sister and brother. 

Yours affeciionafely, B. F. BUTLER. 



To J. Hoyt. — Van Buren b; his Clerks— Lorenzo Hoyl— Barker's last cffer. 
[No. 40.] Alba.\y, June 24, 1820. 

Dear Friend : I thank you for your kindness in attending to my Bouck cause. The letter en- 
closing the [wrong or wing] bill and the decree, came to me charged §1 11 postage I mention 
this for no other reason, than that you may be informed of the carelessness of the person by 
whom you sent it. The letter to Judge Piatt I will deliver. He is on the tour of the Northern 
circuit — holds the Washington circuit this week — the Troy circuit next v,-eek, and I shall ver>' 
probably see him on hi.i return. I have been here three or four days — found every thing in an 
elegant state of confusion, but have got pretty much arranged for business. Take it all together, 
we have the pleasantest establishment in the city, if not in the state. We occupy the whole 
lower door of the Secretary's house. Mr. Van Buren has the front room, with the library. I 
keep my office in the back room, which is cool and pleasant, besides being better adapted for 
study tiian the other. We have two students besides Loren/.o. A youns; man, a brother of 
Caldwell (Gourlay'sson-in-iaw) who has been IS months in our office, and is a sedate, attentive, 
and, I expect, useful clerk — and a son of the loud talking Pugsl^^y. who is a v.ild iVUow, and 
whom I keep on condition of good behaviour. So far, he has not {i:»rfeited his engagements. If 
Lorenzo remains with Mr. Van Buren, I will, with great pleasure, pay particular attention to 
him. He is digging away at Blackstone, which I shall permit him to continue until I get my 
books from Sandy Hill ; then I shall set him about reading a coarse of history, and studying the 
latin grammar. At his asje, a knowledge of general history may be easily acquired. The mem- 
ory, which is the principal faculty ooncarned in its acquisition, is tlien vigorous and unburdened 
by the various knowledse and the di.stracting cares of riper yer.rs. He ift a very fine hoy, and I 
think will do well. He has not the genius nor the energy of his brother, but at the same age is 
much his superior, i' You may thinlc this no great compliment to yourspli', hut prax remember 
that you are one of those whoso talents were buried in bales of cotton and hogsheads of rum, 
until dragged from obscurity by the " strong arm of the law.") 

Whan Mr. Barker tnas at Sandy Hill, he offered to accede to the t-^rms I proposed wlien at 
New Yi;rk, or even to double them if vecessani — hut I was not at liberty to recrire the hunejlt of 
his good wishes. I now consider myself pretty permanently settled ar Albany ; and I think, a£ 
all events, I shall never leave the law for Banking or any other pursuit. I nov/ feel the same ardor 
and fondness for my profession that a lover does towards his mistrfiss, af'ter having been sep- 
arated from her society. (By the bye, they say you can understand the force of this simile, and 
feel it too, when absent from New York. How is this?) Do let me see yon this summer. 
And believe me, most sincerely your friend, E. F. BUTLER. 

To Hoyt. Law — Chancery Practice — Mr. Van Buren and his mortgage — the Albany folkn. 
'No. 41.] Alban'Y July 19, 1820. 

Dear Friend, «f * s ^ « We are boarding at Mr .Tones,' directly opposite our ofiioe, 
.Gilbert Stewart's hous2,) where v,^e have very pleasant lodgings. Our departure from Sandy 
Hill was so sudden, that v/e left all our furnitura in the house, and for the present shall continue 
to beard out. 

As to businesB, I have enough to keen me very busy — chiefly in Chancery — old and new. It 
would be well enough were it not so long before the cash was realised. But it must come some 
day or other. I thin.!; my expectations will not be disappointed. At all events, as I told you 
before, I am for the Law and nothing else— and I regret now that Mr. Van Buren ever thought 



sat 

166 THE AMIiniCAN ERSKIM', MOHEST LAWVEU, AND MILD JUDGE — ALBANV. 

of leaving his profession, whioli you know was what put it into my head to leave him I think 
I shall make my ilfbut at Au'fust term in tho ar^'umcnt of some motions and cases. Though as 
to the bst 1 am rather acjueamish. Mr. V. B. is certainly very desirous to assist me. He has 
several heavy causes in which he insists on my speaking. 

Ilik( Albany about as Uttleas you do — and, with the exception of a few persons who are wor- 
thy of esteem, have very little to .say to the yoodly inhabitants of this renowned metropolis. I 
tliink the eastern junto the n)ost disagreeable of them. They arc generally bigots in [jolitics, 
and eery full uf prejudice and envy. 

Lorenzo is a very line youth. 1 have i^ot him at the Latin Grammar, in which he makes tol- 
erable progress. I shall pay particular attention to him. I have paid .$L25 for the order to the 
Register, so that you ov.-e me 25 cents. My compliments to Mr. Barker, &.c. 

Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 
[No. 42.] To the same. Albany July 2G, 1820. 

Dear Friend : 1 am about tiling a bill to foreclose the mortgage held by Mr. Van Bnren 
against the Kane projjerty, to which Judge Livingston and Messrs. Blackwell and McFarlane 
must be parties. To avoid costs in case they should disclaim, it is necessary to tender them re- 
leases. I herewith send you the releases, and if it is not too nmch trouble must call on you to 
present them to the gentlemen above named, with an explanation of the object for which they 
were prepared. I do not believe they will execute them, tho' they would save trouble if they 
should. They will never get anything from the mortgaged premises, nor from any other of 
Kane's property, and rni^ht as well release it. Notliing new. 

Yours most cordially, B. F. BUTLER. 

To Hoyt, on utruggUng at the Bar — Judges like to dine — Van Buren the Erskine of America. 
1 No. 43 ] " Albany, August 9, 1820. 

Dear Sir — Yours of the 5tli went round by the v-,ay of Troy, so that I did not receive it until 
this day — but, as I had no opportunity to make the motion on Monday, no iiarm results. 

I took my place in FUeh a position as 1 supposed would ensure me a hearing, but unforlunntely 
there were some tedious fello\ss ahead of me who took up so nuich tinietliat when my neighbour 
next above me was reached it was just on the stroke of three ; and yoa know how eager our 
Judges are for the comforts nt a good dinner. If I had not received yours I should have pro- 
cured an order to stay proceedings. I hope you will not fail to stay with us at Jones's while at 
Albany. I shall not be able to accompany you to the Springs — neither time nor funds would 
permit. The truth is, I am poor, and I mean to economize, and ****** I should like to 
join on a tour anywhere except to the ^jn'ings,of which I had enough last year. There is a 
great deal of business this term, but a great part of it is small business such as Certioraris', &,c. 

Your New York classmen are a troublesome race — perfect snarlers and marplots. Jlr. Van 
Buren stands higher throughout the State than he ever did — witness the toasts at the various 
celebrations. But it I were in his place I would trouble myself but little about the carpines of 
Buch men as you name — they can do nothing without him. What would have become of ihe 
opposition if it had not been for him .' I will say more — if I was Van Buren. I would let politics 
alone. He can be and will be the Erskine of the State, which is an ambition more laudable 
than the desire of political preferment. Hf! yesterday opened a cause in the Supreme Court in 
the most concise, elegant, and convincing argument I almost ever heard. Believe me. 

Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 

To Hoyt. — Late tedious — Judge Spencer uvcourtcous — Butler too forward. 
[No. 44.1 Thursday, 17th August, 1820. 

My Dear Friend ; ' * * < -« The Court gets along very slowly with 

the Calendar. There are 4U0 causes, and they begin this morning at 71. I have done nothing 
more than oppose a motion, in which I was succes.sful — but to-morrow expect to make some 
provided lean get a hearing. I attempted it last week, but His Honor, the Chief, [meaning it 
if) presumed, Ambrose Spencer,] in his mild way, told me to wait until my .si:niors had been 
heard ; and as I was the youngest Counsellor at the Bar, perhaps tiiis was right ; but it excited a 
great deal of observation among the bar, and is generally spoken of as not rery liberal nor 
proper. 

I really don I know how it is; but I am considered, by sonic persons, ua possessed of a re- 
markable degree of forwardness, 4{c ifc, merely because I am unwilling to remain forever at 
the foot of the professional ladder. However, if my life is spared, I shall grow older every day, 
and therefore, sometime or other will be entitled to a hearing. 

My causes on the Calendar, which are three, will not be reached this term. 

• Most truly yours, B, F. BUTLER. 

Fifty Dollar Fees scarce — Judges Woodu-oi th j{ Spmcer talked about. 
[No. 45.] To Jesse Hoyt, Esq., Wall St. Albany, Oct. 12, 1820. 

Dear Sir— I am happy to hear of your success— and bopi it may continue — $50 and 



THE ORGANIZED CORFS, BUCKTAIL COUNCILS, AND ENVIOUS LAWYERS. 167 

fees are not very plenty in this part of the country, at least not with young lawyers. Our circuit 
6till continues. Judge Woodworth, in person and in business — " Like a wounded snake, drags 
his slow length along." He has given very general dissatisfaction this court. * * * 
* * * * The ciiy has heen full ol farmers, &.C., these two days — at a cattle show 
— but I have seen nothing of it myself Chief Justice Spencer delivered a speech on the occa- 
sion, by way, as I suppose, of preparation for the period when he trill be compelled to retire to 
the shades of private life. '■ * * In haste, yours, truly, B.F.BUTLER. 

[In another letter, April, 1819, Mr. Butler tells Mr. Iloyt, that " The appointment of Judge 
Woodworth is universally reprobated here ; without any exceptions, except the Clintonians."] 

[No. 4G.] To Iloyt, on Noah b; on Caucus Nominatious. Albanv, Nov. 7, 1820. 

Dear Sir : At the caucus last evening, G8 Republican members of Assembly were present. 
Two very staunch republicans absent — not yet arrived — so that we shall not lose a single man. 
Mr. Sharp agreed on for Speaker. Mr. Vanderheyden for Clerk, 45 — to 2.3 for A. [Aaron] Clark. 
The votes to-day will be unanimous, and every thing will go as it ought to. The Council did 
not meet yesterday. Mr. Noah will attend to your letter— he lakes great interest in it. I 
have not been able to see either Mr. B. or Mr. D. 

In haste, most truly, your.«, B. F. BUTLER. 

To Jesse Hoyt, Henry if; Campbell defeated — Van Buren 6f Butler mt very busy Clinton's 

abusine Message. 
[No. 47.] [per Counsellor Gaines.] Albanv; .January 18, 182L 

Dear Sir : * * * « * Wc have had a very tedious Session. The Court 
have been principally occupied with non-enumerated business, and have been able to reach oiilv 
No. 98, on the Calendar. There was no business of interest except some pretty important mo- 
tions — among others, a motion to quash all our scir. fa. proceedings in Otsego, which v.as fully 
argued by Mr. Campbell and Mr. Henry for, and myself against it. This was the first oau.se of 
any importance I ever argued in the Supreme Court, and this was the most interesting matter 
before the Court. I made out tolerably well, I believe, and was heard very patiently for near 
two hours. The motion will not be decided until next term. 

I v/as sorry to hear from you in so sombre a strain as that which pervaiicd one of your late let- 
ters. I hope, however, that with the new year your prospects will revive — and I have no doubt 
that industry and merit like yours will command, as it certainly deserves, success. 

We [Van Buren & Butler'l are doing hardly any business — what we have is in CHANCERY 
and THE EXPENSES ARE SO HEAVY AND THE PROCEEDS SO LONG LN COMINg', 
that my present hopes are confined to a bare subsistence. The only consolation is, that I ani 
making, as I think, some progress in professional knowledge, of which one day or other I mav 
reap the benefits. 

There is every prospect of a stormy session. The Governor [De Witt Clinton,] lias connnuni- 
cated the documents relative to THE ORGANIZED CORPS, accompanied WITH .V VERY 
ABUSIVE MESSAGE. This business will injure him greatly throughout the Union. 

I don't think I shall be an applicant for any thing this winter — certainly not if I can o-et a liv. 
ing without, which I hope may be the case. Mr. Esleeck is the most prominent candidate lor 
the office of District A ttorney, and feels confident of success, and will probably be appointed 

1 hope to see you soon at Albany, when we shall expect you to stay with us. * * ' * 

With sincere regard, yours, B. F. BUTLER 

[2'o /. Hoyt]. The Bucktail Council very unpopular — Albany near a rebellion. 

[No. 48.] Albany, Feh'y 20, 1821. 

My Dear Friend — * ■ -^ * * I hope the Council will soon finish all they have to do 
as the excitement produced by their labors is very great, and the difficulty of pleasin"- evervbodv' 
very strildngly illustrated. You will have seen by the time this reaches you, that they have 
given me an office — without any trouble or exertion on my part — or much on the iiart of mv 
friends. The minor appointments for this city have given great dissarisfaction, and it is as much 
as we can do to keep the people from open rebellion. Of all this, however, say nothin"— as I 
hope a few days of reflection will compose the angry elements. To judge from the violent 
expressions of those who are disappointed, one would think that our prospects tor next Sprin" 
were rather blank — but you know it is the genius of Democracy always to be impetuous and 
sometimes to be rash. I have only time to say that you are always one of those for whose 
health, happiness, and future prosperity I feel the liveliest solicitude, &:c. &c. &.c. 

B. F. BUTLER. 

A close Election — the Chances stated — Disaffection to the Buck'.ails. 
[No. 49.] To Jesse Hoyt. Albany, March 3, 1821. 

Dear Hoyt : Having been engaged in a long and tedious Court of Sessions, I have been 
unable to write you sooner. Notwithstanding the dissatisfaction which prevails in many parts 



163 'THE ONLY IMPORTANT BUSINESS OF OUR LIVES' HPMBUG. 

of the state, I think we have a fair chance of success. Dutchess is not yet to be abandbned — 
Saratoga is cfrtaia — Eisex diito — Cayutra may be hoped for — Generiee and Niagara promise 
favorably — Ulster and Sullivan may perhaps be lost by the noiiiinat.on of Sudani. There is 
afidiif prospect of success in the new counties erected from Ontario. The other counties may 
&t.ind as they did last year, except Montgomery and (Queens. In the former we have strong 
hopes of electing our whole ticket. As to the latter, you have better means ot information than 
1 have. For my own part I set it down as against us. 

It is not to be denied that disoffcction prevails in some counties, and indifference in others — 
and as our adversaries will strain every nerve to the utmost, they may secure the state. 

In the Eastern District we shall elect our Senator, having a must noble ticket, while the 
Clintonians have a wretched one. Probably Seymour may be elected in the Western, tho' there 
is not much hope of it. The election will be close, and some of our friends give it up, though 
without sufficient reason. * * '^ ■ In haste, truly yours, B. F. BUTLER. 

7'o Jesse Hwjt, on Law, Ileligion, Belcnssc, the Court of Errors, f<e. 
[No. 50.] Alb.\.nv, April 2, 1822. 

My Dear friend : I am giud to hear of your sai'e return from Washington, and have to thank 
you for your letter from thai place. I regret that you lost the opportunity of arguing your cause 
in the Supreme Court. It would have been a circumstance equally creditable to you, and grati- 
fviiif to vour friends, to have had you come forward so soon alter your admission to the bar, 
in the tirs!, court, and against llie highest law officer of the nation. 

It is not at all surprizii:g that you should know how to appreciate our solicitude for ^ * * 

* * * Our chief prayer is that she may be prepared for the closing scene, through 
the Gmce of her Creator and Judge. Jly dear friend, THIS, after all, IS THE ONLY IM- 
PORTANT BUSINESS OF OUPv. LIVES — and every new instance of mortalittj admonishes 
us to set about it in due season. 

I am much indebted to you for your atienlioa to the troublesome business of my releases. I 
do not care whether they are executed or not — the only object is to save costs by tendering them. 
Enclosed is a list of all the judgment creditors of J. Kane who have not released. Please 
mark opposite to each, the names of those who are absent, and where, so that I may bring them 
in by publication. 

The Court of Errors yesterday decided the cause I argued tliere (Manahaii vs. Gibbons') in 
lavor of my clJenti^-, (Defendants,) 24 to 4 — a great triumph to me, nnd some little mortification 
to Mr. Henry, v/ho was uncommonly positive and sanguine. I have argued two, and have 
several other causes to argue in the Court of Chancery. 

Mrs. Butler desires to be atf'ectionately remembered by you and by Mr. Ward. No one 
stands higher in hor estimation than your.self. She thinks you liic most ardent friend I have, 
and therefore she I'eels for you as she ought to. 1 ho))e to see you in May, but may he disap- 
pointed. In haste, most tndy yours, _ B. F. BUTLER. 

[To J. Hoyt, at NeiP York.] Political scheming — Inslruciions how to keep Power from the 
People — Noah told hoio to behar.c — ejjbrts to elect Crawford. 
[No. 51 ] Ai.BA.N'Y, Jan'y 29, 1824. 

My dear friend — The Electoral Law was to have been taken up in the Assembly to day * * 

* * » *Thcre is no doubt whatever that a majority think it ine.vpedient to pass the bill, 
and yet they arc so hampered by premature commitments, and many of them so goaded by their 
constituents, as to render it almost morally certain that they pass it in some shape or other. 
Our reliance is on the Senate, and we still enfrtain strong hopes that it will be rejected there 
in wiintever form it may come. Still, this is by no moans certain, and the greatest caution 
and prudence, ns well as the greatest firmness, are required in presenting the subject to the 
Senators. We have not been, and arc not, idle ; on the contrary, if ever rnen labored inccss-intly, 
the ♦ Conspirators' and the ' Regency,' &.c., deserve that praise. » t » * * » Make 
a 8U2gesiion to Mr. Noah, which I trust will not be improperly received by him. It is simply 
to suggest that, fir the present, the Advocate should not pre.ss the claims nor descant on the 
merits^of .Mr. Crawford. We have in the two branches of the Legist, about 105 memliers 
who are thorough-going Caucus men. Of these a majority, beyond all doubt, would prefer 
the nomination of Mr. Crawford, the remainder are for Mr. Clay or Mr. Achims, the suvlhst 
nuiiber heme f'>r the latter. While these man are iDilling to abide by a CONGRESSIO.\AL 
NOMINATION, it is useless to advocate the claims of Mr. Crawford to such n nominHtion, 
it be'u" CKUT.VI.'V that if any is made it must fall on him. Besides, by pressing the claims of 
that gi-nileman ym incur the risk of alarming the feelings and encountcrinLr ilie opposition of 
those firm and honest men who have gone with us nobly so far, and arc willing to go with us lo 
the Old, hut who are yet un^iecountably wedded to Mr. Clay or Mr. AdnmB. And ihousih F do 
not believe thev could be driven from the resolutions thoy have concurred in, in favor of a 
Caucuu ttt Washington, they may yet be induced to give a warm euppon to the Electoral Law, 



SUTLER HOODWINKS THE BUCKTAILS=— SETS UP YOUNG— UPSETS HOSACK. 169 

if they become satisfied, either that their candidates have no chance of a Caucus Nomination, 
or that we are determined to furce the claims of Mr. Crawford. Stick to principles; advocaie 
the ncCL'Ssity of adhering to the old forms and esioblished doctrine^ of the party — and txprees 
the utmost readiness to submit individujj preferences to the decision of the Caucus. It will 
be time enough after the nomination, to defend and maintain the character and claims of the 
successful candidate. ******/ should think it injudicious to call meetings on 
this ticklish subject, especially in the country, where the meetings from necessity would be 
more general than with you, and lohcre our opponents would inevitably oulmanage and out- 
number us. In your city, hoiDecer, the line, is so distinctly drawn, AND YOUR FORCES 
ARE SO WELL ORGANIZED, that you have nothing of that sort to apprehend. 

If the meeting about to take place should not be more formidable than I think it will be, it 
will not be misunderstood here. Its proceedings will be considered as the voice, not of the 
republican party, but of the supporters of Mr. Wheaton and his colleagues, who arc now very 
well understood by the country members — and instead of injuring I think it would render us a 
service if it should stand alone. # * « * » Still it seems to me that we have nothmg 
to gain, and much to hazard by giving to this subject any farther excitement of a popular char- 
acter — but as Mr. Bowne knows perfectly the state of things here, your Committee should con- 
ler with him fully before they adopt any course definitely. 

I omitted to make another suggestion for Mr. Noah. It is not very serviceable to talk much 
of Burrites, Lewisites, or the High minded. Several of the two former classes are here among 
our best friends ; and as to the latter, Sudani, Bronson, and Wheeler, are as true as steel, in 
the Senate — and Whiting, Hosmer and several others in the Assembly arc among our best 
and most hopeful supporters in that House. 

I have .not wVitten to Mr. Barker about his proposition as to voters for Electors. It has been 
mentioned to several, but we doubt the power of the Legislature to pass it, and if they have it, 
we are still more apprehensive of its policy, for reasons which on reflection I think will occur to 
you. Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 

I opened this letter to show to Judge S. [Skinner.] 



Young nominated — the Governor's folly in going for the people — the Argus ajloat — Barker's 

Conspiracy Trial. 

[^0. 52.] To Jesse Hoyi. Albany, April 13, 1824. 

Dear Hoyt — Political affairs stand well. The nomination of Young has defeated the plans 
of the opposition; and though I did what I could TO PREVENT ITS NECESSITY, / am 
yet persuaded, that, under all circumstances, it is the best thing that could be done. You 
will see the two arldresses. To ours we have more than two-thirds of both Houses — and though 
it does not speak directly of the presidential question, I tnink its tendency, &c., can hardly be 
misunderstood. If matters go as we expect, there will be a large majority for Mr. Crawford at 
the next session. Indeed it is very certain that he has received a majority of both branches. 
Rely upon it every thing will go well. Yours truly, B. F. BUTLER. 

[No, 53.] To Jesse Hoyt. Albany, June 5, 1824. 

My Dear Sir— You have by this time heard the consummation of the Governor's folly by the 
issuing of his proclamation You will see that the Jrgits business has been at last ac- 
complished. I was obliged to become responsible for the moderation of the New York paper, and 
to execute a Bond of Indemnity, &,c. I have written to Hamilton for it. Do see that it is sent 
soon. Yours ever, B. F. B. 

[No. .54.] To Lorenzo Hoyt, Esq., Albany. New York, Oct. 1, 1826. 

Degv Sir — Mr. Henry has gone home with an intention of preparing himself in the case of the 
Bams of Plattsburg against Levi Piatt, Wells, and others, (the account cause; ) I wish you would 
therefore * * * » « I have but a moment and few details ol the trial, [Jacob Barker and oth- 
ers for a conspiracy to defraud,] must refer you to the papers. They bring down the details to 
yesteiday at one o'clock. In the afternoon and evening we had a fine time of it, and when the 
court adjourned last night the cause was left remarkably well for us. I send a paper for Mrs, 
Butler. Mr. Barker has done wonders. Truly yours, B. F. BUTLER. 

To Hoyt, on the Law Revisers— Dr Hosack upset — a succee.ior to Talcoit. 
[No. 5.5.] _ Albany, Dec. 11, 1827. 

My Dear Sir — I cannot send you copies of the chapters that are to commence on the first of 
January, as pnssed, as there are but a few extra copies in print. ***** There is nothing 
in them, however, that can interest or afiVct you, in New York, except Chap. 14, •' Of Public 
Health," which mitigates the Quanmtine Laws and upsets Br. Hosack. Chap. 16 cuti; up some 
OPERATIONS that used to be in vogue, hut it v.as so altered by the Legislature as to be entirely 
confined to Corporations hereafter created or rcneioed. 

Incessant occnpati.m has rendered it impossible for ms ^r, answer your kind letter. My situa. 
tion as a member of the Assembly wili render ms ineligible to the oflice you epeak of, in case 



170 MALE AND FEMALE POLITICIANS INTRIGUING ABOUT OFFICES. 

Talcott [Attorney Genenil] should resign. [See the Constitution :] And even if not disquali- 
fied by that circumstance, 1 should be unwilling to withdraw my attention from the remainder 
of the Revision [of the laws of N. Y.,] which will require all my efforts fur some months to come. 
I must gi;t that concern off my hands before I set up for any thing else, especially if it requires 
labor. There is, however, little probability that the good people will suffer for want of cai'.di- 
dates. In a case so prominent there are generally enough to grasp for it. In haste, 

Very sincerely yours, B. F. BUTLER. 

[No. 56.] To J. Hoyt, on his claims on him over Duer. Albany, March I9tli, 18:29. 

My Dear Sir — I have not been able to furnish Chancellor Walworth with a copy of 's 

answer, my original copy h;iving got into that celebrated receptacle of Ciiancery papers, from 
which nothing is ever to be withdrawn — the draw or bushel basket, (I don't know which,) of his 

venerable predecessor I wish I had time to say something of your last letter, but as 

the hour for closing the mail is at hand I must defer, and if I defer the whole matter will tumble 
into Limbo, for I never can undertake to answer an old letter. You do me injustice in your 
mode of stating the case As between you and John Duer I never can hesitate. You are not 
only the oldest friend, i!/^ most assuredly HAVE THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE CLAIMS 
UPON ME — claims which I hope io convince you I have not forgotten, and can never forget. 

Mrs. B. continues to think illy not only of the Washington people, but of your arguments in 
its favor. I shall submit the matter wholly to her decision, though my judgment, not less than 
my inclination, tells me she is wrong in some of her objections — if not in all. 

Most truly yours, B. F. BUTLER. 



JSIaher (like Marcy) to be saved from ruin, and made respectable. 
[No. 57.] Waterford, July 2G, 1 830. 

To Lorenzo Hoyt, Esq., Counsellor at Law, State Street, Albany. 

My Dear Sir — When I left this morning, I could not ascertain whether Mr. Reynolds had re- 
turned or not. If he has not returned, I must get my cause postponed, and return to assist Mr. 
Ostrander before the Vice Chancellor to-morrow. Let me know by the first stage or mail for 
Ballston. 

Notice should be given at the Post office to send Mr. Van Buren's letters to Saratoga Springs. 
Those you sent yesterday to my house are yet there. Will you see them sent back to the Post 
Office properly directed '.' 

Once more. Just as we left this morning, I heard that our excellent friend Malicr was dead. 
It occurred to me instantly that I. H. Strong was very well qualified for the place of State Libra- 
rian. IT WOULD SAVE HIM FROM RUIN, and make him a respectable living ; and hav- 
ing that, he would be a respectable man. I beg you to call on Mr. Flagg, and name him as a 
candidate for whom I feel a deep interest ; also speak to Mr. Croswell and .Mr. Phelps and oth- 
ers. If it can be done, it will be a great affair for Strong. Doii't omit seein2 Mr. Flacrg. 

Yours, B. F. BUTLER. 



Noah — Judge Sutherland — D. B. Tallmadge a Successor to Duer. 
[No. 58.] [Mrs. B. F. Butler to Mr. .Tesse Hoyt.] Albany, December 4ih, 1830. 

My dear Sir: I am greatly obliged to you for sending me the paper containing the article 
" Albany Institute." I am very much inclined to believe th;\t the author of the address merited 
the rebuke, not because our friend Croswell is mentioned in an honorable manner, but because 
the whole editorial corps were not ingrafted in the note. 

If I had written the note, I siiould not have forgotten Noali — I would have given him a high 
place, for he is certainly entitled to rank, being King and High Priest, &.c. Slc, of the Jews. 
In his literary store-house, he has ammunition of all sorts ; and altho' he is too fomi of amu-sing 
U3 with squibs, he can, and does occasionally, send up a sky-rocket. I write in great haste, and 
have only time to add that I am a lone widdow yet — and tiiat the very elements seem to conspire 
to keep my loving lord awa\'. Did you ever know such a continued spell of unpleasant 
weath r? Yours, very sincerely, HARRIET B. 

[No. 59.] [private.] [Mrs. B. F. Butler to Mr. Jesse Hoyt.] 

Washixgto.v, 18ih February-, 1834. 
My Dear Sir — You must eitlier work for Judge S. [Sutherland] or your.^elf, if you do not 
wish Tallmadge to ^et the office of D. A. [District Attorney.] 

His broihiT works like a Cart-Horf^e in the matter, and things are working well for liini. 
Mr. B. ; Butli-rl only yielded to .lud<.'e S's claims over yours, on account uf his (the Judge's) 
pvcidiarly uuplcasaut situation in a pecnniani point uf view. 

Do lielp the Judge. The decision of the matter is to bo left to the N. Y. Members — Repre- 
sentatives and Senators — and they are all pretty nvich to a man, committed to Tallmadge. 

Great haste, sincerely yours, H. B. 



A SHE FED. IN THE CABINET— AN ARTFTL PARASITE L'NCLOAKED. 171 

Judge Edmonds and Pauperism — Price to get the Office — Hoyt's troubles. 

[No. 60.] [Mrs. B. F. Butler to Mr. Jesse Hoyt.] Washingtox, Feb. 24, 1834. 

My Dear Sir — I can only say in relation to the office which was the subject of a former letter, 
that you have become a candidate too late in the day for any hopes of success. 

If Tallmadge and Sutherland are &et aside, as is very likely tiiey will be, if the matter is re- 
ferred to the Delesjation, / think Jlr. Edmonds will succeed. 

So far as PAUPERISM is a qualification and recommendation to the favor of party, surely 
you will give in to THE LAST NAMED PERSON. 

But it is a pity, if you really want the office, that you did not say so at the commencement of 
the session. You may as well, however, write to Cambreleng, who I hear is committed for you, 
and he will be able to tell you all the difficulties about the affair. 

PRICE, it is thought by Mr. B. [Butler] will be the person the delegation will unite upon, if 
they cannot agree not to disagree upon either of tlie first named perso.ns — but I am of opinion 
Edmonds will be the man. 

I am happy that you can talk so cheerfully of your misfortunes. I hope that you will yet see 
brighter days though. 

I perceive by one of your letters you are getting to be quite an old man. 

Mr. Butler still continues strong in the faith (Jacksonism) and thinks that all the political 
troubles of the day are necessary to the purification of the body politick. That lessons of wis- 
dom will be learned now (and learned by heart) that will do men good. 
[Here four lines of the lady's MS. are carefully erased. She adds — ] * 

Don't be curious to know the above — it only showed a little of the old leaven of Federalism, 
which my admission to the Cabinet cannot or has not yet, covered. 

The mail will close and I must haste. Sincerely yours, H. B. [HARRIET BUTLER.J 



Down with the United States Bank, but we may want another. 

[No. 61.] Private, [To Jesse Hoyt, Esq.] February 24th, [1834.] 

My Dear Sir — I thank you for all the news 'bad enough most of it) in your several letters— 
and most heartily concur with you in all the censures and three-fourths of the abstract notions 
you utter in them. As for supposing that Newbold, George Griswold, Stephen Whitney, or any 
of the old federal commercial men, were with us on this occasion, for any other reason than be- 
cause they found it for their interest to go with us, I never for one single instant had such an 
unwarrantable idea. 

As for myself, / Aare NEVER doubted that THE PRESENT 5a«it ought ID= BY ALL 
MEANS .re to be put down — but, on the other hand, / have never been perfectly satisfied that 
we could get on with the business of the country withottt SOME SUCH AGENT. But Mr. 
Taney thinks we can, and 'SJ'he is the judge. Mr. Gallatin also once told me we could — and 
I am desirous TO TRY IT ; because if we can get on without any of this machinery, I think 
it best to dispense with it, for it always has been, and always will be, abused, no matter who 
controls it, we or our enemies. 

Come what will, ire must adhere to the Pres't policy FOR THE PRESENT, even if it sends 
us all into the minority. It would be better to go ten years into the minority than to recharter 
THE Bank, or make a new one ITNOW. Truly yours, B. F. BUTLER. 



Jackson's Proclamation and Protest — American difficulties with France.. 

[No, tjr3.] — Extract of a letter, B. F. Butler to Jesse Hoyt — dated Albany, Dec. 14, 1832. 

" The President's Proclamation has electriiied our whole community. Next to the Declaration 

of Independence, it is the most p state paper our country's have produced." [The 

words left out are torn off the original.] 

[No. 63.] — E.^tract of a letter from Butler to Hoyt, dated Washington, June 29, 1834. 

" Mr. Taney and myself were nominated this morning ; Mr. Stevenson is also yet under con- 
sideration. They are very furious in their attacks on Stevenson, and it is by no means certain 
they may not call for information about MY SUPPORT OF THE PRESIDENT IN HIS 
PROTEST, &c., in which event Mr. Wright is authorized by me to speak strongly." 

[No. 64] Same to same. SrtJYVESANT, October 1st. ]«34. 

My Dear Sir : I have just received your letter of the 27th, which I found at my father's, on 
my return to-day from Hudson, where I have been for the purpose of aiding our friend Bluiit ia 
his arbitration. 

I had noticed the information from France, this morning at Hudson, and it had occurred to 
me that the article in the Times., was a judicious comment upon it. Indeed I think it very certain, 



172 mOURLES WITH FRANCK-, ACKSON FIKED AT-BUTLER ON BANKING, 

-, • u 1 = pvi.t.d in this country against tlie administration, for the last eight 
that the clamor which has existed in this coumy g ^ ^ ^ jg ^s little reason to 

months, has really had its >nduence ^^^^^^^^^^^iJ^,^ President may recommend, 
doubt, that the opposition will oppose any <="^^^';f "'^ ^ ^^^^^^i^,, ^s to produce very serious 
and by their facuous course P^^^^'iaTlconhdnc hat the subject will be well ^ve.ghed by the 
5^;rr hisi]^:::r:nSal":L:::::i^S may determine on will meet the approbatioa 

"1 ^Sr;j!^S}:^-as I ou,u ;o ^ave do. .r ^-^-^^-^^T:^..^ 
receiving it, 1 wrute h.m, telhng '''" ^J ^ij^'l^^i e ,o send the balance in a lew weeks. 
!$15U0f.om him, with a ^'^^V ^; J ,.'Xe to-day Tto morrow for Washington, but Mrs. B. is 
it was my m.ention to have left ^ ^^P'^^^ "^ft)ehind. I shall therefore remain .ill ne.xt week 
neither well enough to go with me, nor ° ^^/^J' ^^J^' .^ ^.e.) Mrs B. will accompany me. if 
when, If she is sufHcieuiiy '■^■<;'^^^'-^^^',^'„VmvwS down, and at all events on my return about 
practicable, I shall enoVavor to ^^^/^"^^"^JJ.'/h.ve taken a course which doe. them infinite 
the 22J nf October. The Democracy f /f.'^;^ "J /^J^'J^ V^ t, y,rs. H., 1 am, .s always. 
honor, and must secure them success. W ah kindest '^§;'»'^^^^^;'^/, ^^^^^ ^ p_ t3L]i j,eR. 

l,au>—Offict— Jackson's escape. 
[No. G5 ] [Tu Lorenzo Hoy.. Ksq., Counseaor at W. Albnny.] ^^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^_ 

n- 1 u. Inn^ ^inee to hive acknowledged the receipt of your ieiieis on the 

My Dear S,r: j^""g^„l. J^^^ s J ,^ or I5 h of 'inrch, 1 :h.li be incessantly ..ccupied-and even 

Rail Road ca-e, &c. .^'".''^V. 'n^coud not prepare the ansvsering brief. But it you will 

if i hail Mr.\on Vecmen s opening, could not prp ^^ are entitled to, as they 

get and send me the points a„d »"f «'^"^, ^^ /"^f^^^/^JnTs I ^ out of the Supreme Court. I 

Semur, J -iU Prepare the ^'-^^'ff '^^'"".P'ScSt as ms altered to April. 

pie-uu.e 1 .h.U be able to attend the ^'^'".ly Oncu t as js a i ^^,^^^^^ ^^^^^^ 

' Our friend Chadden is rather ai-d - J". "^^^^ f^ ^ ^^^SJbia county, as the other one 
J^r.lw:rysVe::'j:e'n'?o G^^e^rcr-'ity." \ have also received a letter .rom h.m; and. as soon 
as I can gel time, will write him. ,>romdei>tlnl. I was walkina with Major 

You may v.ell say that the 1''"''^^'".%"^^^P^ ^^^^fj^ Kavy J^ who were ne-xt^to the Presi- 
Donnelsun, and ju.t behind Governor Dickenson m^^^^^^^^ ^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ 

dent and Mr. Woodbury-borsy h and Ca*. be ng b..^^^^^^^^^^ .^p.es.iontat the moment, w«s, 
sions, did not see the po.-r wreicii i U ^'^J'^'''''^^^^^^^^ J^i^e loud-and for an instant. I f.area 
SV^E;^;:^ r w:::^fi:iri^.^d£^:3\A ^ a mistake. U ... as you may 
well Cn'c'we, a moment of great excitement. We^are aU^well.^^^^^ ^ ^ ^^^^^^ 

rNo fi.^ 1 Ta J Hovt on Jackson's Caution and Forbearance. Washington, Nov. 26 1836 
tl£l-S^entcont.ues.^^^ 

' Though we have not the P-ck- ret"rns of any on «' ^ -^^^^jj^^^j^ ^,^.,,,, jone nobly? 
to doubl the election ol Mr. Van Buren. Have not ^i^f;,';'^^,^''^^^^^^^ B. F. BUTLER. 

To .noyi,onBankingandBarher-Opumns change. 

Wasiiington, January 25, 1837. 

M^^^Sir : I thank you fbr the loan of your P-Pj;:^;^>^;;i:irT£X:^^SS 
to th'e public. The performance, ^^^-^ll^S.'" '"^ ^^^ n ucl mi ed up witli Mr. Barker's af- 
through it-was a very jejune one ; and besides ^J^f /J, ^^^i'^^^^^J'^.^l^, for them ; and as they 
fairs, a. to prevent it f-'^^P.-^^.^E^f ^^^^lut ' lal tl elctrine of the writer must have 
went by the board, the pubhcwa^^^ .^ ^^ to modify, and iti others 

been bad. In some refapeets, aUo. I '^ ^"^^ "° " ^ , gjr. who is there that, on subjects of 
perhaps, to change altogether the -"--f^Xm" and similar Banks, it is pre.=umed,] does 
thi. sort, [Washington and W "/-^'^^'\'^;,^f'".^'J *„";,,',,,,,,, year.-especially if they come be- 

♦ Or Biley 



fU&S COEHCINft THE ELECTOTIS-SELDEN, V. BtJREM k THE Ot!) HSRO. 173 

Flagg to J. Hoyt. on Speaker Croliui. Genl Tallmage, and the Electoral Dm 

°° Ai.BANV, January II th, lb24. 

DiaJ^s'^-Vour letter was handed to t.e ^^ --|f " :^:; ^r^n.is I^.^^^S 
anticipated its contents ui the course taken ^^^ f;"^"^",^ J"„^ f ,^,^" da ce but we gave .he.n 
were to take the country democrats by the h.nd and lead "'' ^ ^^^ ^^4"^; re'^ular cUarance 
an mtnnation, tliat iausmuch as they came from a ^^f^l'^l^^^'' I, X Caucus, Mr Tall- 
from the den.ocra.s or that port ot-^eregard^^^ ^^^h c not bear tS see h.s 'aged, grey 

mage, assummg the ground f ^^^^^V^f'J'^" J walked together iu the refurm path, &c. 1 re- 
headed mend, (Croly ) turned °f J'^^J ^aj ;fjf "j^ \^^ , Uiy for his old fnend, and 
phed that he spoke fcelmg y-U ^ ^^^ ;'^"^f ,^ ' V^.^^S ,to/ci !pon\h^s floor upon the same 
.hoald be -"--- --'^^"^^ ,:V^e a o tt lact, and said he did not by any means sta.,d upon 
£ s'ame 'ooti^wUhtie gentleman from New York. A pretty con.phment to hts Irtends, 

" S: lil ^^0. MY KBso.t:xio., THE " PEOPLE"' h.ve been as «- YVlaGG 

Yours, &C.S ■^' ^' ^ ■""■»-■^• 

P. S. Drop us a few tender lines n ow and then. 

Flagg to J. Hoyt, on Young, Butler and the Elections. 

Ai.BA.vY, 4 o'clock, November 7, 1827. 
SiJt. 'canvass of the 5th ward gtves Butler 75 ma.orny. the other two .,f our Assen.bly 
'^^A'lett. f^ WarvlS;'e:t:.da-y. says 200 votes polled that day. and two to one for our 

'tpe^on who leftSar.to,a Springs yesterday, says it j^^P-^^t u " Jl^oo^'"" ''^'^^ 
...11 ,/e elected ; Sa.nuel Y.cmg upposn.g the r g^ - "-^ ^ ^/j 'he r 1 vv l' be g.ven in 

siho^o?.-?;,;.;:irm::.^^^ 

Flagg to Hoyt, on S.lden. Van Buren and the ^-^^«^^^^^ ^^^ ^^3.^^ 

[No. 70.] . r ,v ronvention, and will, 1 doubt not, be 

Dear Sir: You will have seen ^l^e proceedings of the Con ~ fo, ; gt.ie delegate 

gratified with the general results Bowne had b en the prommem m .^ ^^^_ 

faerurc the N. Y. delegation arrived, and a majon y f '^e "'j^g^ on . 1 ^|. ^^^^ ,,_^^^_ 

tied that matter at once. Your city ^-^ '^f !;-,;^^ j^^P .'^^^'.^^.^Irong'vour members, of the 
ing of the Cunventmn-and belden ^^ .^/f \'~^^^^^^ adverse to the city were 

House, indued y.ur delegation ^« '^^l'^^^ '^ J,;:" e, forScl upon .hem who would not be 
agreed u^.o,, here, -"^that they would have dd^^^^^^ the Convention into confusion, 

agreeable to them-and :=elden did all mh^^^^^^^ . * . » 

^:::::::^'fi£v:::e.:^ ^f^^fz^^^ ^u th^gs went o^ with the most 
^l^x^^;S'^£i"^e?srir£^=i^-a^^ — -^--^^^ 

the interests of Mr. V. B. a««Z the Old Hero diversity of opinion as to 

Ln »d Van B„,,„ Will ge, a .„„mph.„t v... and b.av .'ow^y-JWpo^'"'"- ,^ (.. FLAGG. 

chances. 1 

[No. 71.] Dudley S.lden Esq., to ^'''' ^^ifn^'^^^^^^^ as soon as he thinks ' 

My Dear Hoyt: My friend's letters have not, perhaps, been '^^^'J^^^^^^-^^^^ entitled to be 
they oa.ht, but I have not been able to read ^^^ Y;';"^3'so „ ^^ "'^^ P^'"^^'^ ''• 
piaised for his punntu-.lity who makes h,s return to a '^"" ^^f^J^"^'^ ^^ Livingston or Stilwell ; 
^ You need not endorse " confidential" 0. any "/ '^e ^omn^^m at^ons U^^ ^. ^^^ ^ ^^^^^ 

they are both m mv room as soon as ihey break your ^^a-y^' '^^ P ."^ ^1,^ mysterious marks 
understanding of the contents. They canno ^l--g^\l^ll^l'l^Zr for you as I go along, of 

and signs with such rapidity : the »™^\;,ttiic trc;me fwm a man of your understanding. If 
such capacity and merit as would eeem suitable to come uom * w*" 3 



174 CALHOUN DUPED — THE LOBBY — FLAGG &: PHELPS ON FREE BANKING. 

you cannot read this you may do the same thing. My time has been very much occupied in 
the committee ; you shall have a report if you will engage to read it ; and let me say to you 
that it is spoken very vv'ell of. 

On reading Calhoun's correspondence, I made up my mind very soon that he had been the 
dupe of some poor devil behind the curtain, and had exhibited most egregious folly in being 
caught. Your successful competitor for a high place, seems to have been the most conspicuous 
man in bringing up this by.gone transaction ; and I am glad that Mr. Van Buren, like the high- 
spirited horse, has shaken the dew from his mane and exposed the rogue to be taken. No news 
here. Your kind efforts in favor of D. D. & H. are duly appreciated. I felt satisfied that in 
sending me the little pamphlet your whole object was the public good. So is mine, and I will 
if I can give the rascally speculators upon time a thrust under the short ribs. 

Yours, truly DUDLEY SELDEN. 

McCoun hangs heavy in the Senate. I know not why. As soon as 
withdrew (and so I read his letter to the Chancellor) I have aided him all I could. 



Cutting to Hoyt, on Bank measures and the " Lobby Whores." 
[No. 72.] , Albany, January 5, 1836. 

My Dear Jesse : I send you [an] extract from the Albany Argus. You will perceive that our 
friend Charles takes the true stand ; and, svith his invincible popularity, will add strength and 
currency to Democratic measures, in contradistinction to the federal views of certain leaders at 
Old Tammany. Get the Post to republish them ; and, if you can, let them say a word or two for 
Charley. I suppose the Times will not republish, but as it is a matter of general interest just 
now, the Courier might copy it, in order to inform its readers that ic is probably a useless ex- 
pense to keep any Lobby Whores this winter. Yours, in haste, F. B. CUTTING. 



Thad. Phelps on Free Banking — Swearing on paper. 
[No. 73.] Mr. Thaddeus Phelps, (of Park Place. New York,) at Albany, to Mr. Jesse 
Hoyt, at New York, [April 29, 183G.] 
" Dear Hoyt : We arrived this morning and have already accomplished wonders. Our in. 
fiuence has already made six Banks in the House, (no fear of the Senate,) and by to-niorroW 
night there is very little doubt we shall have made twenty or thirty more. You fellows who are 
in tavor of the Repealers, may all now go to Hell in your own way. Consider your restraining 
law repealed. Consider me a partner in a Banking Company— I put in 2,000,000— Call on 
John Ward for the money. No more at present — your loving triend, 

. . , ^, , . " ^THADDEUS PHELPS. 

Arrived on Monday mornmg. 29 \nril 

Monroe has sent in his allegiance— and the Native American party ^fav 
go to the D— 1. Boat off. T P " 

Flagg on Free Banking, addressed to J. Hoyt. 

r.^^^'^H, . , , ,, , Albany, Jul V 27, 1836. 

Dear Sir : I have received your letter of the 15tb, and fully appreciate the importance of taking 
hold ot the Restrainmg Law, as you mention. Your letter came while I was attending a meet 
inn- of the Canal Board at Utica, and I have this afternoon returned from a meeting of the Trus- 
tees of Union College. I have thus been prevented from answermg your letter, or attendincr lo 
Its suggestions. In due time I will have something done. The quarrels about the Banks of 
last session, will aid in pushing forward this just measure, if taken in proper time The c^reat 
mass ot the Democratic papers in the state are sound on this point, and will co-operate with 
zeal and efficiency. With much respect, your obedient servant, A. C. FLAGG. 

Flagg to J. Hoyt, on Banks, Paper Dollars and Log Rolling. 
[No. 75.1 , r , . . , Albany, October 3, 1836. 

Dear Sir: i he repeal of the restraining law, so far as to allow offices of Discount and De 
poBite, IS universally assented to by town, county, district, and state conventions. To this extent 




S:,';;7:;t^;TMi^rc;ii^..^— •• ■^'■"»->^'"^ 



175 TLAGG, HOYT & MARGY WHEEL ROUND TO A BANK SYSTEM— HARD MONEY. 

a law can be passed with little opposition. If the issuing of Bills is added, so as to multiply 
without limit the manufactories of paper money, a new aspect will be given to the whole matter, 
and those who are opposed to any change may be enabled to keep thinys as they now are. If we 
can open the way, and build up a class ot Banks which not issue paper, these will co-operate in ma- 
king the currency more sound than at present ; if they have noiliing to make by the issue of 
small bills, they will not be aggrieved by seeing gold and silver take the place of the small bills. 
After the fetters are knocked otf, and the new class of money changers are " in the full tide of 
successful experiment," such other modifications may be made as experience may recommend, 
and as " the business wants of the community may require." Repeal the restraining law, refuse 
all banks, unless their stock is sold at auction, and those who trade upon legislation, ^the hon'ble 
the lobby) vvill be blown "sky high :" and the scenes of log rolling and corruption would be re- 
placed by a decent regard to moral and official purity, and a reasonable attention to the public 
business and the general welfare. Truly yours, A. C. FLAGG. 



2Iarcy to Hoyt, on Illumination in Banlcing. 
[No. 76.] [To Jesse Hoyt, Esq., N. Y.] Albany, 24th November, 1836. 

My Dear Sir: You promised me some illumination on the subject of the restraining law or 
rather the repeal of it. I am informed that there is a. prohabiliiy that I am elected, and if so, it 
will be expected that I send to the legislature a message. If you have any publications or other 
matters too cumbersome for the mail, you can, if you choose, put them in the charge of one of 
the electors from your city. If you are extravagant in your notions, they will not be adopted — 
you expect, as a matter of course, they will be modified.* I will not ask you to get svhat you 
write yourself copied, because it is possible that some one may be found in this city or vicinity 
who will be able to decypher your hand writing. 

I am, with great respect, your to be obliged and humble servant, W. L. MARCY. 

Flagg on Free, Private, and Privileged Banks — General Maison and. the Restraining Act— 
Flagg on the Usury Laws, 
[No. 77.] Albany, December 4th, 1836. 

To Jesse Hoyt, Esq.— My Dear Sir : I have received your letter of the 2d instant. I have 
not seen the pamphlet of Mr. Hammond, and therefore cannot speak of its contents. The re- 
peal of that part of the Restraining Law which prohibits offices of discounts and deposites, I wish 
to see achieved, and I believe to make the object certain, no private Banking System should be 
connected with this measure. 

After this is done, if there is a press for paper manufacturing Banks, then a system of private 
banking, to issue 50 dollars, and over, may be brought forward and discussed as a substitute tor 
the present mode of dealing out charters. 

It has been pretty well settled, that a siould fan- running bank charters cannot be made con- 
stitutionally : that there must be a distinct vote of the Legislature upon every moneyed Cor- 
poration. A general law for establishing a system of private banking, and conferring corporate 

♦Governor Marcy had signed very many bank charters, or contracts bestowing special privileges on the share 
holders of banks, as such — so had Governor Throop. Mr. Van Buren had, in his safety fund message, recnin- 
mended orsranized wholesale restraints. Governor Blarcy, in his message to the Legislature, Jan. 3, 1837, [whether 
through ilr Hoyt's illumination or not, I cannot say,] advises a partial repeal of the privileges of the chartered 
banks, in the following words ; 

[From Marcy's Message, Jan. 1837.] — "In every country where banks, with the exclusive privilege of furnishing 
the circulating medium, are numerous, and particularly where the business of loaning money is embarrassed by 
restraints imposed on other associations, and on individuals, it is reasonable to expect that pecuniary pressures will 
be frequent and severe ; and if not more frequent, they will probably be more severe, and continue longer than in 
countries where all sources of relief are left entirely open, and comjietition is permitted to operate in adjusting the 
relation of equality between demand and supply. In this respect, the operation of the statute usually called the 
restraining law;%o far at least as it denies to individuals and associations the right of receiving deposites and niak 
ing discounts, is un(|uestionai)ly injurious. 

It is the essential characteristic of private jiroperty, that the owner should not only have the right of exclusive 
possession, but the liberty of free use, modified only by the equal rights of others to enjoy their own property, and 
the public right to provide for the general welfare. The reasons, therefore, that should induce the legislature to 
enact or continue any law circumscribing the rights of individuals in relation to their private projierty, must arise 
from a strong and clear necessity of providing for the well-being of society. I have not been able to convince my- 
self that any such consideration can be adduced in support of that part of the restraining law, which interdicts to 
the community at large the right of receiving deposites and making discounts. If it originated, as is generally be- 
lieved, in a desire to give this kind of business exclusively to incorporated banks, and subserves no better purpose 
than to carry out this design, 1 anticipate a ready disposition on your part to repeal it. 

There is nothing, I believe, in the history of the times when this law was first enacted, which is calculated to in 
sjiire a high degree of respect for it, or from which sound arguments for its continuance can.be fairly deduced. 

The restraint in respect to deposites and discounts, being regarded as injurious to the public, ,Hud devised as a spe- 
cial favor to the banks, the law that inii)oses it is not efficiently sustained by tiie moral sense of tlie community, and 
is constantly evaded with impunity. The efficacy of laws depend, in igreat degree, upon the concurrence of pub- 
lic opinion in their favor ; and when, for the want of this sanction, particular enactments are in a great degree ino 
perative, they should be repealed, that the evil example of disregarding them may not weaken the force of the sal- 
utary sentiment which all should feel — that obedience to laws, withott regard to individual ojiinions as to their ex 
pediency, is a high moral duty." 



176 MAISON, LIVINGSTON, FLAGG U HUNTER ON FREE BANKS— HOYT'I Bltt. 

nowcrs is not attainable. If the fetters arc knocked off by the repeal of the Restraining Law, 
Private' b.niiin- associatio, s may be formed, and these may be regulated by law, and ,h,s law 
be general The -eneral laws lor incorpoiatmg manufactories and church s^^cieties. « ere passed 
before the'constitution was adopted : these laws were not revised and re-enacted, but mserted 
in the 31 vuluuie as they sti od. . r i • u #^ i 

The Senate referred the matter of the Restraining Lsw to a committee, of which General 
Maison is Chairman, and Mr. Hunter is one- of the members. I suppose General Maison will 
be prepared with a bill. Mr. Cutting, I presume, will renew his bill in the Assembly ; and the 
provisions of his bill I am in favor of. This bill breaks the chains, except as to issuing bills 
To allow all the world to manufacture paper currency might do more evil than good. At all 
events before this is done, a well devised system of guards should be matured to protect bill- 
holders and other creditors. The demolition of the Usury laws, in relation to commercial paper, 
such as vou mention, is probably desirable ; and certainly worth an " experiment:^ But, as you 
mention; this measure should stand by itself; and in the same way, the system of private bank- 
ina, if one is presented, may as well be discussed and settled separate from the repeal ot the 

Restraining Law. . . , , u .t, 

1 do not think it politic or proper, to make special war upon existing banks, as may be the 
case with Mr. Hammond. We have taxed the Safety Fund banks three per cent on their capi- 
tal for the protection of their creditors, and we hold them to strict regulations, wmch they some, 
tiroes break over : vet give them fair play even though they do not in all cases extend U to the 
business communitv. Those who insist upon an unlimited repeal of the Restraining Law, if they 
accomplish their object, will do enough towards disciphning the banks without bringing any 
other artillery to bear upon them : Truly yours, A. C. i^ l^AUl? . 

Ex-Speaker Litlngston to Jesse Hoyt, on Free Banking— Young, Maison, l^c. 
INo 78 1 Albany, Dec. 30ih, 1836. 

My Dear Sir- I have just received the draft of the law prepared under the directions of your 
committee, acompanied with your private letter of advice as to the mode of procedure. 

The pn'po-ed amendments are well enough— but you must not expect that the legislature will 
adopt them in the hasty manner suggested. In modifying so important a provision m our laws 
a variety of thoughts will necessarily engage the mind, and no little time will be consumec. m 
discussing them before the Senate can arrive at a final decision. This is unavoidable, however 
desirable it may be to hasten the accomplishment of your objects. Gen 1 Muison, the chairman 
of the committee which has this matter in charge, has, for the last month been so cnnsiantly 
occimied in maturing opinions for the Court of Errors, that we have not yet had the opportUMity 
of comparing our views ; and it would be indelicate in me, whatever ambition I might feel to 
become the father of the measurer to press your bill without his sanction. Be patient and all 

will go well. , , .... r , .,, 

Young I am informed, intends to urge an unconditional repeal— to permit the issuing of bills 

if adequate security can be given lor their redemption. Such a measure can be sustained upon 

principle, and I shall not hesitate to give it my support— not, however, if I should think such a 

course would hazard the m-in chance. 

That pan of yiur bill which contemplates an altersition in the usury laws 1 propose to erase 

altogether— not because I ;im hostile (as at present ndvised) to the change, but 1 prefer for many 

reasons to consider the usury laws a separate question. 

So soon as our committee arrive at any definite conclusion I will inform you o* '*• ^_^^^ 

Yours truly, CHAS. L. LIVINGSTON. 

Ex Speaker Livingston on Free Bunks — Hunter's scheme to limit capital. 
fNo. 79.1 Albany, Jan. 3d, 1837. 

Dear Hoyt : The anti-reBtraint committee met this evening and our chairman (Maison) sub- 
miit. d his bill, the main provlMons of which are .is follows — 

" \st. Removes the prohibition agninai offices of discount and deposit — restrains all associniions 
formed under the law from engaginz in the purchase or snle of real estate, or dealing in merchan- 
dizp, hu •uihorises them to hold" real estate in payment of antecedent debts, and so much as may 
he necessary for the transocii ^n of their business— prohibits the agents or officers of foreign cor- 
ponlion* esi'.bli.shinff assoeiatiooR for the purpose of the net within this smte — certificates to be 
filed wiih connry clerks, selling f irih \he names of the co-pirinershipand amount of cnpital em- 
ploved— prohihiis all corporations from rnttring into the business authorized by the act, except 
such as are (xpres-^ly pi rmitied bv law." 

Hunter will probably off. r, when the bill comes before the Scn.nte, hi-; darlin? o-'rndmcnts, 
limiiinfi the amount of capital. This I imnuine will be offered moref ir the purpose of disphiyin? 
his consistency ih:m wiih the expectation of its being adopted. When the bill shall he printed 
I will send you n copy, from which you will be able to judge more correctly of its provi-ions 
than you can from this sketch of them. CHAS. L. LIVINGSTON. 



etTTTINS WELL NAMED — BANK DEMOCRATS ABUSING BANKS— S. YOtfNO. l77 

Counsellor Cutting on Banks, Edward Livingston, Ogden, Postmaster Graham, tie. 
[No. 80.] Albany, Janunry 6, 1837. 

3Iy Dear Hoyt : Charles Livingston has sent you a copy of tlie bill to repeal the restiaining 
law, reported by Maison in the Senate. The first section is all that ou^lit to pass, but I suppose 
that bein^ in the hands of the Philistines we must be thankful for any favors, no matter how 
small. Edward Livingtson, O" I am afraid has turned a sharp angle, and will come out Bank. 
See his vote to-day. To-morrow he will be biought to the bull ring, and stamped as he deserves, 
if we should go into committee of the whole and he should participate in the debate. We beat 
them to-day elegantly. 

Do you see who compose the committee on the repeal of the restraining law in our House ? 
Ogden, Chairman ! the violent opponent of the measure last year ! the aaent of the Farmers' 
Trust and Loan Company I the intimate of John L. Graham, Seymour & Co. I the cuest of the 
former last spring in New York, and his lobby friend at the Syracuse Convention i 0° But we 
will defeat the gang. The restraining law will be modified — the usury laws partially repealed, 
and no Banks chartered. F. B. C. 



Ex-SjKakcr Livingston on 'Chartered Nuisances' Free Banking, the free use of Capital, and 
Young's Usury Bill. Cutting's queer postscript. 
[No. 81.] Albany, Jan. 9th, 1837. 

Dear Hoyt : The mail of last evening brought me two letters from you. Since f last wrotp, 
nothing new has transpired, except the introduction of Maison's bill, a copy of which I forwarded 
to you for critical examination. I am sensible that many of its provisions will be regarded as 
unnecessarily severe — indeed, it has already been characterised as a restraint upon the restrain- 
ing law ; but it should be understood as having been offered in its present form, now, for the pur- 
pose of aflibrding an opportunity lo bring under consideration all the advantages as well as inju. 
rious consequences of the proposed restrictions, rather than with any hope of their being adopted. 
So far as I can discern, the legislature have sound views on the subject ; and before long, you 
will be in the enjoyment of all the benefits which are expected to flow from the free use of a 
natural riaht to deal in money. But after all, and you may rely upon it, the repeal will be found 
to be of little importance, so long as persons are restrained from issuing notes to be put in circu- 
lation as money. 

Baiik petitions begin to shew their ugly faces from all quarters ; and unless their fate 
be decided at the threshold of the session, the friends of these chartered nuisances will struggle 
desperarely fbr another shuffle of the pack. If they dared, they ivould put a stop to all decent 
legislation till their jnonopoiizing appefitrs were gorged with special privileges. But there arc 
some good fellows in the assembly, with Catting, King and Clinch to lead them, who will hold 
on to their grasp without mercy. 

Young has introduced his promised bill to repeal the usury law. He goes the whole figure ; 
but I doubt if he can persuade the Legislature to go with him. If we succeed in exempting from 
its penalties all commercial paper having six months to run, an important point will be gained, and 
perhaps it is better to stop here for the present. If this experiment works well in practire, the 
law may then be extended to all contracts. Cutting desires me to leave a space for him in' this 
l*^"er. Yours, CHAS. L. LIVINGSTON. 

On the same sheet, us a Postscript. 

Take care how you write too freely to the Speaker*. Time will show whether he goes 
with the bank-men or not. As to his disp'isition to do so, I have a strong belief. The assem- 
bly WIS engagfd this morning on the resolution to instruct the hank comminee. To-morrow the 
discussion will be resumed. The final vote will not shew the full anti-hank strength, hut I think 
it will speak strong enough to satisfy the most sceptical, that all expectations for b^nk- this year 
will be disappointed. F. B. CUTTING. 

Ex.Speaker Litinsston on Maison's Bill, Frntection to Safety Fund Banks, Fnre'gn Corpora, 
lions, C'ipital, Currency, Free Trade in Mnncy, the United States Bank, Thaddeus Phelps's 
views, and picking the feathers from our Pilots. 

[No. 82] Albany, .Tanuary 12'h, 1837. 

Dear Hoyt: Yorur las?, received this evening, expresses astonishment that I should have as- 
sented to MwisDn's bill I have, in a former letter, attempted to explain the reasons for this 
course. It ihe.se reasons are feeble and unsatisfactory, then I n)usf subniit to the cons- quencea 
of my error. I could endure any punishment, no matter how severe, thai the people should 
choose lo inflict upon mc ; but I confess it would make my ht^nrt bleed to think that I had by any 
/a!/x pa? iicurred your displeasure. But in truth, my good friend, you seem to entertain ground, 
less fear of the designs fif the Legislature. Believe me, there is no serious intention to transfer 
the government of the State to banks—our sympatkiea are with the people, and their rights will 

*SdVrard iJringston of Albany, 



178 HOPES AKD FEARS FROM FREE TRADE IN BANKING-EXPEDIENCY. 

, 1 Look at our proceedings for the last ten days-they will satisfy you of the truth 
be respected. Look at our P™^=^" ^ probable result of this whole matter, 

of this ren.ark. and they n.ay al o >' f '"l^^^^'^-.^,'^^^^^^^^ has been adopted hi committee of the 
I think I sent you a copy of the b'"- J '^^J^'^' ^^ird. This pmvides that the bili.s of 

-I't- / '^^^T^""?^o £ ;S? c? cu^r/L ^o... by private Innkers. Such a restraint 
ike banhs uj this ^^'"'^ J^ ™, i^//^^ oiAnion) to protect our citizens from an unsound and 
Z^S:^ cSrSS ' To ir::':;:^nu':m' prepared I believe you would .o in i..pos.n, res- 

tdctions. condition we know nothing, and over which the Legislature 

It foreign corporations ^^J^^f .f°"^ J^^^^ijerate and dangerous issues of a sickly currency, 
has no control are not ^h«^^,«^d n the.r "^^""^ J;/";^/,^ ^„^tj ,„,,e their representatives lor 
to be circulated as "-f >; ''I'^Sfj^^^.f^f i\ " ^Th regulation of the currency has always 
Buffering such -y^'!^ ^^^"^^iSl con ol ; and there is, as the Governor [Marcy] says 
• : y;:!::^S" ma^^S^ei^e Sween free t;ade in money and free trade in .he hctitious 
representatives of money. . , , i ,„.„ (i,o Killa nf thiq State • thev will always have 

rs■'L:;l:l^tr.pu:,:i!y1T.m"Mua,,e„^ ... .u, ...i. yo„r »„„.,.„ p»„,»s 

p<,„ of pr..ecm,g .I.e.r ™'"'«- J,*\ rf t no t^S^p .^^^ '''''> «f 

talher w mo.c-e .1 I » »PI»»'"™« ^Jt,, „', bu" »1«. se?.M w exl.ibitll.e ojiouj diarac 

ir„MS tw^r "s °^' h ' :„M ;:°j:,;c i"-„'„ eiab„„,.e ^..y ,.p„„ ... »«»«. p,e. 

ifo^Ui^rre^Tt. ,„„T,La .ay .b.. I w™;*-"^' '■"cl^rsT-UVINGSTOK. 

feathers from our pilots. ^ 

E..SpeaJ.er Livinsston on the Eanlc Bill-Bank ChnH^-sflljo, root and hranck-thc 
M^x ^pcuhu » Senate— Mote the Press and tell Phelps. 

fNo 83.1 To Jesse Iloyt. N. Y. Ai.banv, Jan. 12, 1837 

,. T^ U vt- - wrote vou a letter last evening just by way of filling up an interval before 
My Dear Hoyt x ^"-o'^ y°uji ''^""^ has been continued this moniinn; upon the all 

bed time. The discussion on the '^^^'; " "''j;/, !^X,n rejected, an.l an animated debate nroae 
engrossing topic. The third section of the J'^^ ^'^^^^^^ jj ,^f i, , ,„„ ^^u believe that it 
on the fourth, ^^l-t dispos, lon^ o^o^ hiid^^^.^^ ^^ ^^^^.J^^ l.y our einzens 

has bee,, adopted? and ye sue i '^^'^:^- , ^^ -^ .^e introduction nn.l use of capital, 

with indignation and c.mtempt. It a, is « * '^ ''^''^yhat will be the consequence of pro- 
und may result in the rum ot many ot our '"^^ ;h. n'^- W 1^^^ ^ ^^^^,.^^,^ i^ 

rnpprasJtill nil bnnk charters are destroyed ;-;'''''.--;■ J ^^^ 'y^^;. Us U 

AMiTous. but T -";;; '-- ; -■i';^:'i^ :^, \ ^:; :, ;on:m:;nd ;:iai.,st%iie .ection, 

""':;■' *TTy ^u ' ''^nd T a. V Th.s "uemen deserve the thanks of our city [New York] for 
us did also Youttg an.l 1 ra< y >. ' . ,,,j„ ■^^^,^^, j^ done to them. It n-onld be well 

li:^:;^m'v^7;mV:?KR^ - •< - ayi,ate-iagitnte-n.i.ate_and the country will 
^[i,^];^lJx:.;;rffepre.n..desp.. Ifaniu.^ 

r:a;;^^t;T;rw-e^t;r;:rm^:..:irre;tle:V\Lx: . poH,.cal economy. 



USEFUL SERVATV'TS MAY EECOME DANGEROUS MASTERS. Hg 

K^--i- ---^;-^^^ let .0 eoneU.e w..He .„- 

You nK.y con.nunicate .his Scrawl to Pl.eips. ' C. L. LIVmCSTON. 

Ccnrtroller Fla.s to Hoyton Free Bar,U.,-il,e causes of HoyVs nero lorn ~.enl for tke re 
^■^^ g^ , l''"'^ "f reslrauits on dealers in Currency. '^^ 

Dear Sir: I have received your letter in rpln.inn t^ n/r • - Albany, Jan. 15, 1837. 

Law. Bv this time you will have een tlnMhe s!?-., I °" '. '"f'T"^' ^*' "^^ Restraining 

hnd been two or three votes ,no" oftl! f e tndc ; l ,7' "" N t'" '" '" ^'"'''- ^'' '^"^ 
but the first, which was a simple reped 5 1 e re nL non offi7'' I" > ''' '"' T ^^^'^''^ '''''^'^' 
is, they have only retained tie 4t;, with modifi 1? ^f , e' ot,tr°"^,:" ,tP'-^^= - i' 
opinion, 7s r/ftflui j/V^^ I think fm-^i.rr. ^,. .■ '=• '"'" ""e otnei. ihc bill now, m mv 

here : we have tro^ihle eno S w^h oJi 2 ": Z.,^^ ""' !"' 'f """' '" '""'''' ''^-' 

and Connecticut. M.ison showed me I is bill 3 r ',7?'"^ ''f '"'"^ " ^'"°'' *''^'^ J^'-^^y 
the fetters upon capitnl, and allo^'p hVl^ Ba Ve s t H f' ''""t' r^'" ^"^^ '" ''^'■•''^'' "^ 

now do, *e:rcepl toissiJe Mil.. We a, lid him his nil ''"■' "Tj "'^''J' '"^^Porated Banks 
the committee as an opponent of the reS ^ th restrir^n J''' H "°' k" '' ''"' ^'' ^'"^ "^''^'^d 
expected from an opponent of the meast 1 rel ef Mr Mnek t'"^,;'"'?;"'^ ^''"' ""'''^ 

Tnevh:"'T'^=,^"'^''''°^'^^^''''' °'''--''-tsupp''o:.;?:.!;pf,::/'^ ^^"^^ ^-^^ ^g-nst 

bills'to be^l^eStftS^S— r^'^ll'liir^ ^'"f ^^ ^'-'-^^ 'r'-^- ""owing 

is not a prospect ofLy Ban Jthis winteT! of anyTinl, lots^ue' tZeT' "' '"' '"" '''^^ ^^ 

Truly yours, A. C. FLAGG. 

^ &/m^or izm-r7^s;o» o« 5««i Bills and ' the Devil'. John B. Yates.i 
My Dear'ffoyt: The repeal of the much tilk^,? .f i ^^'^any .lanunry 16th, 1837. 

without any material chan.'e of the rm i w| If , sto ;'!."%,' f''''"'"^ t'^'' "^"^"-^ 
now under discussion contemplates a re^^^^l of 1 ' ' fnt , f TT- ^''" P'-opo'^iticn 

bills thnt may be issued, however to S Th. n ' PO" Hulividual issues ; limiting the 

and Youn£:_and if I m stnke no ' said i T P''^"^'""" Ii'\« been ably supported hy Tracy 
Bubsequenr reflection h s 1 n ^y o fn ^ ^™f nm ',• ll " • ' r'" t' ''"'''' '*' ''"» ^ -"^^- 
privilege mi^ht be extensively abused ?d1n'v' J ••■«"«'• >nclmed to go against it. Such a 
by fe.rs than realities-hut mvobiecUnwir^^ ^"T ^"''' P^'^'^''^ ^' ^"""enced rather 
consisienc^ in my vote with a to me '""."""§ f ^" ^plam what mny seem to you to be an in. 
it is always prudJnt to co menc by IZZ^J'^'tf T ^'^'"^^./'^"-'^ «^ -rrectin^ evils, 
aims at too much in the onset i.eistLlnrofSs't. ^'^^^f /^"^''^''-V »»ends a reformer if he 

Ie.s.ativeeontrol_andtfweeaI';:e;::^^^ii^^^r:Sr:^^^^ 

lieved, at the l)rokeiV bonrd, that Mr Hovt wn« I.V i V"''^'' f* '*«^ Commissioners, in 1841, whether it was be- 
Trust and Rnnkinjr Company, an were "that M^ ' 'f!r' .nterested ,n purchasinff the sf.ck of the North Ame ica,. 
largely interested in operating in tTe^tock of f|' r fA ,^ "n'..!-''''"^"'''" '*'"°"" "'« '""^^'^ t'"" Mr. H' vt wa" 
that he was strongly n^dicted t ^s oc\ s, e.nfa itV .'n', 'I^ZV. Tf-'^'-l-ressionprohably arose from the know ed"e 
who, from tl>e connection an,i the conti'lence^n 'in i^'^'-'" "'■!" ''^'""" ^"'""^ ''«"" '"eely "' that stock 

to be operating for him. or that he was infP^l, "i • '"/''""'•y ^"1'^'^*"'? hetween then, and Mr. Hovt, iere sunnosed 
lions were extremely nm/ro table " ]V r Rnr l^H ''',,'?''f:''''''"-^-, ,^"''' fi'rther.that he " hel e -es the e opera 
in that bank were co";,..;,,,!;' soM in wl i ^,r ^Vat a li 'c n [TV''"^''' ^-"r'^:]' "''■" '•'^-^»'fientesof de;;Z 
creasmg until certificates on time were s Id fn soL. , commenced at 3 to .5 percent., and went in in 

should not have considered it Ts^frSit on in w , m"!'''''' I "? "'^ of 5 per cent, per month discount I 

Beers s Bank, while the Snb-Treasury wa open/tio: W5 H?0 to "t ^nf 'nf'n ','' til' ''' ,^'^«'«"'^y- Hovt lent 
aeposites altected tbe value of the sto'ck, which 'fr:c[rt;dftomfertin'itgot^ ""^''^ 

un^erS-l^'m^i;;:^^;^:;^::';:^;^;;^;:^^^^ resttictions on bankin, ^ 

law, and the privileges sold hv t ^le- sh to s . , 1 ^ T- '""' '^^^" confined to chartered companies, privileged hi 
the other side till after his elect on as Pre Z? "^''''''^'e oncers. (Of course. Van Bnren and his friln.Is were on 
who ably aided the friendfof ^d rc^ro:b;'h;"\ n':";de" "'" ? '^ ''T' ' ^'^- I^-^'on T^nT 

took the same course, as ,lid Colonel Youn.^^ Mr Vale: was wm, ''/ '"• ^"""'^'^ »» get cheap postage established 
nal .mprovements. I was a director tlr l?e co ony i f tlTe We Hnd' r^^ I r "'"'' "" ■"'"'''^ ""'^ *■■""' "^ i"'«'- 
(♦«ve.norYates,andothersofhisfamily, hadeSked«;Wnm. nniV 1 f^""'!'""''' '" ^^ich he, his brother 

nor Vates was as sincere a friend onJ^o.:^':'!:^:'^:^^'l^^^^^Z^--^^^^^^ 



all BanK petiuons was taken ^"-^-y' ' ^d men and true, and will ue co 

I,te ,hn„ enough ,„ ,e„J« »" "'TJd rtl. P i ""• *" »"" » ""' °'' "■" ""Tr^d'l'i 
;r,r -i'T^'e' Sr,Mi-^-r ;- ..,4...a ..a. we. >,a.e „i„e.^. .n.n.p.-.^^ ^, ,. 

;;! t"e;>S -7-' »7i «; p„ „„, eo.„ ground c„o,.,„ . The ^^'^^tZ 

;rea,.,,t au.y. a, " "■■' f-SiY; ^"v I n„f.h,i„k f^im ;vb.t I Wieve .. be «'-;»■ ,^^. 

irSwe wo,«f. . k-«;lXJ:onroTr,r a'llia Di^o,o=racy >h. *am,ng and 
Bant. Comnuttee ? Let the vctcs be ">=^f^ P^^'^'^^i/win-s in tlieir true position, hand in h.. d 

S,»»,«r a.ing.*'^;;;;^;^^^^^^'^^^""' "•' "■"' "To les« Hoy... 
. f^-- ''ji 21 I837.-I am Wined .0 .hinW n,y ^'f^^J^l ;:^^''i'^^^ 

j.fce the x^rth -<»n'fi"»,rr'!;''i r„ 






THE REPEAL OF BANK RESTRICTION — A PRECURSOR OP StTSPEWStiN. 181 

poration, but the spell is nearly broken, and another night's reflection may metamorpho«« me 
into an inflexible advocate of shin-plasters. Some limitations and i^ecurities are indispensable w 
guard against abuses, for I cannot admit your theory to its full extent, that the people are under 
all circumstances cap;ible of managing their own affairs. In some cases they must be protected 
against themselves. My distrust of their intelligence commenced when they elected such a poor 
devil as myself, and until they choo-e agents who will respect their feelings and their interests, 
I will dispute their capacity to govern themselves. Don't disclose this heresy, and above all 
don't let me see it in the Evening Post in the form of "an extract from a letter from Albany." 
Do you understand ? In a few days v.e shall have under consideration a general plan for pri- 
vate banking, provided there is sense enough in Albany to mature one. It is designed to keep 
this subject distinct from the restraining law. Cutting has just called in to say that he has re- 
ceived some letters from you, and desires me to siy that you must work harder and talk less. 
What impertinent language for a servant of the People to hold to one of his masters ! 

Yours, &c., CHAS. L. LIVINGSTON. 



All the World may become Stock-jobbers — even Beers's Trust Co, 
[No. 89 ] The same to the same. Ai.banv, January 25, If 37. 

My Dear Hoyt : After a well co:it(sted fight we succeeded this morning in rejCiting the 4th 
section, 13 to 12 — a su''stitiite was Jifierwards offered and adopted, to whicli tiiere c in be no 
very serious objection. It simply re-en icts the e.xisting Law as it is f mnd in page 712, sec. 6, 
Vol. 1, R. S. which restrains incorporatiois in their cnrporute capacity from estMblishing them- 
selves in our State, and circu'a'ing bills, I'ic, but agencies may be estal)lished to loan funds. 
M'rris Robinson, Louis McLane, et id nmne genus, may now pursue their lawful business with- 
out subjecting themselves to a fine of $1000, or the fear of going to the StMte Pris n. I have 
only time to congratulate you on this htt>pv result. Phelps will participate with you in the yra- 
tificatiun you experience in witnes-iing the progress i)f reason and common sense in our Senate.* 

All yet seems well ; and if it end so meet, 
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet. 

Mv room is full n( loafers tormenting me to denth about a si.vpenny Canal claim, and compel 
me to close this so abruptly. Gutting is in New York ; he will give you s .me interHsii"g news 
from this place. Yours, C. L. LIVINGSTON. 

Freedom to Banking — Arkansas, Michigan, India, and Illinois Stocks, our next Sureties ! 
[No. 90.] [To Jesse Iloyt] Albany, .January 27th. 1837. 

Dear Hnyt : Restraints are removed — the people may walk abroad, disenibMrrassed of the 
chains they once hobbled with. The bill passed this morning with a unanimous vote, after hav- 
ing altered the character of the 4th section, as I pointed out in my last. If you want to snap 
any other bolts, you had better indicate your wishes while we are in the humor. The bill will 
doubtless pass the Assembly ; and, if with any alteration, I trust ic may be, if possible, for the 
better. Yours, G. L. LIVINGSTON. 

Comptroller Flagg to J, Hoyt, on the Multiplication of Paper Credits. 
[No. 90r7.] Albany, January 29th, 1837. 

Dear Sir : The repeal of the Restraining Law, after substantially striking out the 4th section, 
has received a unanimous vote of the Senate. The prohibition against non resident monopo- 
lies remains as in the Revised Statutes. The prospect is, that the vote will be equally unani- 
mous in the House. Maison's bill, therefore, has been entirely demolished, except the first sec- 
tion. Offices of discount and deposite can do every thing which Banks now do, e.xcept to issue 
bills. There were some phrases in Maison's 4th section, which I had not particularly noticed 
when I wrote ynu. and which caused its rejection. Maison's original bill was such a bill as 
the Banks would desire to have passed ; it tied up the free use of money with nutnerous cords 
which were not used in the old Restraining Law. But the good sense of the Senate has set the 
matter right. 

There is considerable discussion going on in various sections of the State, in relation to a 
general Banking Law. Onondasa has taken the field on this side. After the passage of the 
Restraining Law repeal, there will be a fair field between the safety fund incorporations, and a 
law applying the Safety Fund restraints to simple banking associations. The multiplication of 
paper credits in either mode, I apprehend, will produce more evil than good. But ibtre must be 

♦The f illnwin? is p. dr;ift nf n resofutMin driwn up !)V .Tesse Hiivt nt New York, nnd sent to Colonel Voun? nnd 
F. B. t;attin2 nt'A!i)inv, to be nroposed ti) the Leiiis|:itiire.— " Rpsnlveil, th:it tiie lt;inks in the city of New Vork 
vvh ch d 1 buiiness under the Siifety Fiiml net, do report without delay the iimmint of monev tney respectively have 
bud on deposit from Corporations out of this Stiiteonthe 1st diiy of every inonth, viz: from tbslst of DfC. 1835 tolst 
«f JttaU(U;t 1S37, upvB which dspositt i&tcr«st bAi bsto p&id'w sgresd to he paid." 



182 ELECT WRIGHT ANP THEN QUARREL — PENNSYLVANIA POLITICS 

a change as to the mode of dispensing stock, and perhaps a general law would do this in the 
vtost acceptable manner, and secure the location of Banks where there was business to support 
them. Truly yours, A. C. J'LAGG 

Let us have no Quarrelling about Free Banks, till after Wright's Election. 
[No. 91.] [To .lesse Hoyt.] Albany, Sunday Evening, Feb. 21, 1837. 

My Dear Hoyt : I arrived this evening, and have seen certain publications in the Albany Ar- 
gus, relating to myself and my course in regard to the Committee of Investigation. I am too 
much fatigued to prepare an ansvi'erlhis evening ; but in the course of to-morrow, will place the 
subject in its correct light, and will endeavor to have it published on Tuesday, unless it is 
deemed advisable to avoid all collisions until after the election of Silas Wright, as to whom 
there has been a strong opposition — indeed it is said, that ou Friday last, there was a majority of 
the Legislature against him. If, therefore, my observations do not appear on Tuesday, they 
will be Inserted on Wednesday. Request Mr. Bryant to copy them, in case he has inserted the 
articles from the Argus, and see that the Times does me the same justice. 

Yours, F. B. CUTTING. 

[No. 92.] [Favored by Gapt. Stoddard.— Sunday.] 

My Dear Hoyt : I sent you yesterday, a Bank Commissioners' Report. How is money and 
real estate? Could a sale at public auction be effected at fair prices, of good property to the 
amount of $100,000, on accommodating terms? Without mentioning my name, call upon 
Bleecker, and Jenkins, and make the necessary inquiries, and write me. I send you a little 
public opinion.* The stage is starting. Yours, F. B. CUTTING. 

The true Van Buren School — have principle in proportion to your interest — be all for self 
[No. 93] Dr. Joel B. Sutherland, to Joseph McCoy, New Market, Philadelphia. 

Lazaretto, June 27, 1816.— t Dear i\I : When I received your letter last night, I 

immediately took a chair to my front door, and commenced reading it — I was much pleased 
with your notions of buying out Peacock, but the difficulty that will have to be encountered, 
will not, I think, be of a trivial nature ; I may perhaps make the arrangement with Boileau, 
in relation to the adjutant-generalship, but whether he would be willing to endorse a note to 
raise the wind is another question. I am told he is avaricious. However, on this point I would 

*From the Onondnga Chief, a Van Buren Paper.— We are glad lo see so many sound democratic journals in 
different parts of tlie State, speaking in terms of decided reprobation of the conduct of Speaker [Edward] Liv- 
ingston, in regard to the formation of the committee of hank investigation. Wherever the judgment of men is 
not paralyzed hy bank influence, or its e.xpression restrained by motives of interest, there is but one sentiment of 
indignation in the mouths of the people. Even the Speaker himself has bowed before the omnipotence of public 
opinion, and has felt himself compelled to attempt a vindication of his conduct, over his own signature, in the col- 
umns of the Argus, but in our humble opinion, he has succeeded miserably. 

tJudge Sutherland is an old and a shrewd, cunning, good natured politician, of Scotch parent.ige, and Van Bu- 
ren principle. He is a regular Democrat; wns health othcer at Philadelphia when he wrote the above letter ; went 
for Jackson and the pet bank scheme ; ran for Speaker in Congre.ss, in opposition to Andrew Stevenson, who had 
the Van Buren presses to aid him ; went into Congress in 1838, for the 1st district of Pa., as a conservative, or un- 
changed democrat ; supported Harrison in 1840; and in 1841 was appointed Naval-Officer at the port of Philadel- 
phia, by Tyler, from which post he has since been removed by Polk. lie avows, in the above letter, the system on 
v\'hich Van Buren and the regency worked the ohl council of appointment, tlie press, ])atronage, and the safety 
fund hanks — namely : to blind, deceive, and plunder the millions, under any cloak, and by adopting whatever was 
uppermost in men's minds, that could he turned to party account. The sub-treasury, as Jesse Hoyt, Stephen Al- 
len, Joseiih D. Beers, Cornelius W, Lawrence, and their hanks, carried it out, would be a new means of cementing 
a powerful hand of cunning politicians, by giving them the spoils lo speculate on, Joel opposed that. Steve Al- 
len kept carefully nil the cash Je.sse gave him ; but Jesse allowed no more to pass into Stei-e's sub-treasury than 
the surplus beyond his own wants for speculation ; and as the Van Buren family went shares, Secretary Woodbury 
allovi'ed liini his own way. When the day of reckoning came, Jes<e Hoyt was S'i'20,000 short, and the judges 
found that the pains and j)enalties of the law of 1840, did not apply to the case of Jesse Hoyt ! [ copy Dr. S's let- 
ter from Mr. Dunne's Aurora. The Doctor, it appears, exjiected to be appointed adjutant-general of Pa., for the 
purpose of becoming recruiting sergeant to the party leader most likely to succeed to power. 

" Very soon after .Mr Snyder came into the chair of the e.xeoutive of this state, (continues Dnane,) it wns dis- 
covered that his elevation had been procureil by a concealed combination of persons in the legislature, who com- 
promised' the aftnirs of the people, in a division of the offices, |(ower, and patronage of office among the conspira- 
tors. As part of the compact, the press was to be placed under the control of this secret combination ; every free 
preos was to be proscribed, and prostituted presses established, or piirchaseil, in every part of the state, so that this 
combination should not only direct public opinion, but e.vclude from thi> eyes of the people the knowledge of truth, 
or the animadversions that are usual in a state of freedom on public measures. Those who considered the jiress ns 
free and vigilant, did not perceive that it might be placed in corrupt hands, or in the hands of ignorance ; and that 
freedom might be exercised as amply in the cause of villainy and fraud, as in the cause of virtue and justice ; that 
the activity and vigilance of iniquity niiglit employ it, with us much zeal and labor, as the friends of freedoin, of 
scicial ha])piness." 

Who will wonder that Colonel Uuane died poor, or that his son was unfit to be a member of a cabinet which 
Van Uuroii secretly conducted on the Biitberland principle ? How can the press guard the .American i)eoplo 
against the dangers arising from the Kubstitiition of secret corruption for the principles of free election "? the giiinn 
•if a rapacious bund of miilniglit conspirators for public oUice, and the control of the ntBte, for the welfare of the 
whoia society! 



VERY LITTLE OF TRUE PATKIOTISM WILL BE FOUND IN PAGE J 83 

just say, that for the present, nothing can be effected in relation to our scheme till Mr. Boileau 
returns from the state of New York, which will be in about 4 or 5 weeks. The truth is, M'Coy, 
Boileau is but a child in pohtics, he is not half enough acquainted with the underhand work that 
marks the bold and discerning politician. I will tell you who I think will embrace this scheme 
much sooner than Boileau. I mean Win. Findlay. He is so full of schemes and notions, that 
he is literally running over with them. But there we cannot well go — we have unfurled the flag 
of discontent, and it would look cowardly to furl it up again, unless it should be thought better 
to surrender at discretion. 

While I write this about Findlay, do not suppose that I doubt Boileau. No, I am far 
from doubting this man's honesty, but, I frankly confess, I doubt his policy. When I see him I 
will read his heart. Findlay at this time stands the best chance of any man I know, if a few 
of us would become recruiting sergeants in his cause. Moreover, he will be hostile to Binns, 
who is going down fast. You may think me a damned strange creature to be vacillating be- 
tween Boileau and Findlay— BUT AS YOU AND I, AND ALL POLITICIANS, ARE MEN 
OF PRINCIPLE IN PROPORTION TO OUR INTEREST, I have written to you undis- 
guisedly upon this matter. If you have time to come down with Hart in the stage some after- 
noon, and have a long talk with me, you and I will understand each other more fully. I want to 
talk with you about our joining with Leib. I wish to know whether the democrats might not 
come in this way in the city, 1 know they would — I wish you to go on the ticket, at your leisure 
you could then make arrangements with Peacock, we would then be on the spot to join the man 
most likely to succeed. 

I would like to see you before I see Dr. Leib. I know I shall see him before the election — I 
see there is no chance for my success in the N. Liberties, except it be through the assistance of 
old schoolism — Bussier, if he is rejected, will quit the party ; but by that time the opposition will 
iiave their candidate. We ought to watch them well now, and be prepared for the worst. Re- 
member me to all our family — tell my dear parents that we are all well. 

Your friend, J. B. SUTHERLAND. 



A Secret Chapter in New Jersey Special Legislation. 
. [No. 94.] Dear Sir : I was too late to-day in my application to Council. They met, and 
immediately adjourned without doing any business, so as to get off in a coach that was waiting 
for them. But you need not despair. I have seen Halstcd the member from Essex — he would 
have offered the resolution if an opportunity had occurred. He is opposed to the Morris Canal 
and Banking Co., upon principle, and would have opposed their bill, if he had been in his 
seat ; but knowing his sentiments, they watched the opportunity, and passed it in his absence. 
James L. Green says he thinks they have done wrong in letting that bill pass, and he would 
avail himself, I think, of any chance of crippling them. 

Halsted will offer the ichole resolution and support it, whether the return is filed or not by 
Tuesday next, and I think I can induce Green to assist as a member of the committee. 

It requires some little management and trouble ; but Wm. Halsted and myself will engage to 
get it introduced notwithstanding any return they may jnake. The forfeiture of their banking 
privileges has accrued, and the return cannot restore it. 

We therefore will introduce it ; have it referred to Halsted as chairman of committee, with 
some other member (Green if we can get him appointed,) and will get a report of an unfavor- 
able character ; how far it will go we cannot tell — that depends upon the investigation and dis- 
closures made. 

We can raise such a dust about it as will bring the President back to defend himself. We 
propose to ask the committee to give us a fair hearing, which the chairman will readidly grant. 

As there are now two of us engaged, and this is the last plank upon which we can make a stand, 
you must tell your friends they must provide accordingly in case we succeed in our operation. 

I forgot to tell you to have the Evening Post sent to me as Editor, immediately, and if you 
think it necessary the Times. Yours, &c. 

[" What affair is this ? Who besides Hoyt can explain it?"— W. L. M.] 



Send my clothes to my Washerwoman, hire my lodgings, and get Duer to choose my Wines — 
Ought such services to have been paid with $50,000 a year, and a douceur of $220,000 at part- 
ing ' Wherein does the favoritism of Louis XIV. and of Martin I. differ ? 

r J'o. 95.] Martin Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt, Albany. 

C> skill, June 25. 1819. — Dear Sir: I arrived here last night from New York, and go to-day 

with General Root in his chaise [or chair] to Delhi. I hope to be in Albany on Friday next. I 

send by the boat my vaiice, containing some clothes which I wish you would send to my washer. 

woman. She is the same who washes for Mr. Bleecker. Yours in haste, M. V. BUREN. 

[No. 96.] Same to same. Nov. 17, 1819. — Dear Sir: I want about fifteen or twenty gal. 
Ions of table wine — say prime Sicily, Madeira, or some other pleasant, but light and low wine 



184 BAISmS, FIGS, rT?ES OP WINE, POOR DEBTORS, AND LAW ril$. 

to drink with dinner. I wish you would get Mr. DcER, who takes thi?, to select it for me, and 
buv it and send it up.t Get me nhn a box of good raisins and a basket of good figs, and send 
them with the wine. There is yet $94 (I believe lhat is the sum) due me from Mr. George Gns- 
wold on my fee in the Washington [that seems to be tlie word] cause, which I wi^h you would get 
from him and pay for the above ariicles out of it, and remit the balance to me by Mr. Duer. it 
vou dont "et it, Commodore Wiswall will give you the money, and receive it here again from me. 
Excuse the trouble I give you. The report you mention of the Comptroller has not reached here. 

Your friend, M. V. iJUKbiN. 

[No. 97.] [Martin Van Buren to ' Jesse Iloight, E?q., Wall St. N. Y.' 
April 29 [1820 ] Dear Sir : I shall leave here with Tuesday's boat, and will stay in N. York 
some time.' I wish you wculd get for me, from Mrs. Henderson, the use of her little parlor and 
a bed-room— and if 'she cannotaccommodate me, get it elsewhere. I would, however, prefer 
altogether to stay with her, but can't do without a room other than a bed room. ^-^n_„ 
I. think the election is safe. Yours in haste, M. V. BUKLJN. 

'No 98.] Martin Van Buren lends his Money by the $5 to the Poor, and huys Wine by the 

Pipe for the Kick. 
Attorney General Van Buren to Mr. Je?se Hoyt, N, York. 
June 21, 1820.— Dear Sir: .Tust as I was ening from New York, Abraham P. Van S— — 

who is a clerk in Jacob I. Barker's store, 456 Pearl Street, a nephew of John C. H -. bsq., 

borrowed $10 of me, under a promise to send it up, which he has not done ; and, from what Mr. 
Hogeboom tells me, I apprehend he did not intend to do it. I wish you would see him and mnke 
him pay it to you. Ask the Secretary about the enclosed. I have never hear,| any '^'n^J'bout 
itsince I paid my $10. Your friend, M. VAN BUREN. 

[No. 99.] The same to the same. ?i''^^"lP'''f H? rnv 

"I am afrriid you will besrin to think me a very troublesome friend— but 1 AM Utm- 
STANTLY THE VICTIM OF IMPOSITION— that man Plimpton who own the Abnbva, 
BORROWED FIVE DOLLARS! of me, when he went off, under a promise to send it up. 
If you happen to fall in with him [ wi?h vou would him— he is a graceless dog. It would 
iPcommoJe me veiv much if I should not have my carriage next week. The Governor is to be 
qualified to d^y, bu't Albany is as quiet as a church. It is said that efforts have been m-de to 
raise the wind, but in vain. Mr. Clinton is universallv considered here as pohtically rietunct. 
I will believe that there is nothiu- in the story I h.ard in Philadelphia [a part ,s 'o"' "f J '';•; o* 
courtesy, and will want them. I go from hence in a few days. M V. bUKblN. 

P. S. Mr. Hoyt will oblige me by presenting the above to Mr. Beekman, and transmitting 
me the money." 

[No inO.] Martin Van Buren to .Jesse Hoit, 40 Wall Street. NY. 

August 20 1820.— D. Sir: You will oblige me bv presenting the above draft to M. K^fufner, 
and thp within check at th<. Citv Bank, who will, of course, i^ive yon the money for it. which 
pav to Dnminiok Lynch. Esq. for a half pipe of IVine I bought of him sometime since. I have 
mislaid th*" bill, but I believe this is about the amount. If there is a ^^'n^'fence, pay .t^nnrl let 
me know what it is. M. V. BUREN. 

[No 101 1 August 23d.— D. Sir: I enclose vou a draft this moment received from Mr. Kauf". 
ner for Knufman]-be so good a<. to n«e it as before directed, and to call on Mr. Kaufniati. and 
say to him that I have received the $150— that his cause has not been reached on the Calendar 
—and of course goes ofT until the next term. My prospects of success are goo I G,ve \1 r K. 
the receipt on the other side. Your friend, M. V. BUREN. 

[No. 102.] § E. Livingston to J. Hoyt. on Butler's influence. Van Buren's young tribe, and 
NeiD Leaders — Jesse's Slock. 
At,hany, Feb. 24, 1P21.— Dear Hoyt: The Notary bill will not pns«, nor will any regulation 
be rr.ade concerning Commissioners or Masters in Chancery. Do you wish Ward appointed a 

t Mr. Hoyl wi nt the Frnnklin Honte, N'ew York. 

1 nenneit dcrlnrps in his Hornld (Oct. X I'^i.')) t'mt hn<\ he known that S". or iSIO werff of no mii'-h '■'"n"''''";;^ 
to Mr V R nnd tl>nt Mr. V U. rr>n"ireil the en.h.rsempnt of C. r. rnmhreleng to ennt.le him to horrnw WnOO 
whiMi'he went i.i Washington at Juckson's lecretury of rtate, lie would never hnve atiempteJ to borri>w 82500 
thro' his influence. 

6 Rdwnrd Mvin^ston un? ele'-ted Tlerk of .Assemhlr in 1?22. nnd hehl the office n Innsj lime. JTnvin? removed 
fr""! New York to AUmnv he wiis clcried tn iho leiislriture imm tlinl roimtv. nn.l Mirrpedfd '^•^"'''■s H"mi.hrev 
a< P..Pnker in IPSV, hv PO v.lei. n?'iln»l 07 f t I.iilhcr Rrnrii«h. who wns fSipnker in the nes'inn of IP^H. He «••■» a 
l.rr.ihcr-i—liiw of .Indre fiitherhind. nnd wnj «tiprw>ded nsrior'' hv Ponnt-r pf-eer. who h-d hecn hiD depntv. Fhe 
Alh..nvPee"CV"rer.(i'd to h.ive heen do-^ir lis tnele.-t Mr. L. Clerk H oflt.. in Ccmsres'. Oec'r iPlf "Thehnnd 

qunrle'n of the m.mopolv demoprnti r«nirt I, .Tselt) is in the ritv of Alhinv ind Edwnrd [.ivmeston. whoie 

T,«ffiii..n. nnd tereiversntin? conduct, MSp«aket of tb« AwmWy, wintd fux bim U>«iconi oftrsr; trui atjaocrut, 
b la* of theii mouth piecei." 



ON Marriage— oFFicE-HUNTiNG — regency Pf)LiTics ii-j IS'll. 185 

Matter? If you do, a line to Butler would fix it. There appears to be some discont<>nt in ihe 
Curnp — some sny that we must have new le iders, bat I believe all is safe, and that the pnuier 
of the pnriy will be permanent if ordinary discretion is used, t Peter R. t;ild me that if he 
collisions which have taken place since had happened before the New York appointments, that 

he w,.uld be d d if I should not have had m.y appointment. Sutherland did not want any 

thing for himself', but went away .quite in a huff. Van Buren's young tr;be, that he has been 
training f.^r the last 18 months, thougin they could rule the State, but he is too cunning for them. 
The party is in an unsettled state ; we w;int a firm leader. We must puff up some of our clan 
into a great man. Bowne is pressing the bill to divide the mayoralty as fast us possible, to ena- 
ble him to give us a mnyor, &c. But who they will be he keep< to himself Hatch writes me 
th^it he was much surprised at my sudden departure. I should like to know wiiether Noah has 
appointed his Att'y. I do not think he will give it to us. 1 should be very glad to be in New 
York, for I am tired of Albany ;**■** Believe me, dear friend, 

Yours most sincerely, EDWARD LIVINGSTON. 

[No. 103 ] Same to the same — Nov. 22, 1621. — Dear Hoyt: I suppose you will learn from 
Mr. Van Buren and other friends every thing new and interesting * * * Owing to the ri.-e 
of wheat I am fearful that United States Stock is lower, but God grant you a safe deliverance. 

« * » * « J think you had better try your hand at matrhuuny. 



On Marriage — advice tn Hoyi — Albany very dull. 
[No. 104.] Edward Livingston to Jesse Hoyt, at New York. 

Albany, December 3, 1821. My Dear Jesse : I presume that you have by this time returned 
from Rhode Island, Your visit to Hartford was, / ^«e«s, about a certam libel suit, which busi- 
ness may possibly cost you some money. You are begy:arly poor ; granted ; pretty senii.men- 
tal, &c. Now, in my opinion, if you get married on the spur oi the occasion, you stand a 
small chance of being taken in — as you are as apt as other folks to be deceived by first impres- 
sions. You are generous, and therefore the more danger. Your standing in society is very good, 
be careful or else you may be worse off. .\s Noah says. Prithee good Mr. Aothecary give me 
an ounce, not of civet, but of common prudence : But you will ask ' how the devil shall I take 
it V Taht is more than 1 know, I do a-sure you. It is a pity that there is no shop where such 
commodities can be bought, f jr 1 should like to take a pretty powerful dose, and would pre- 
scribe the same to my friend Hoyt. ****** 

as you dont appear to care what you take by frequenting No. 55, &c. If a woman that you 
should esteem should have too much money, get me to draw up the marriage articles, and 
I will rid yov of all difficulty upon tiie subject. You ask me to dispel the difficulties stated 
in your letter, but in the first branch of your argument you explicitly adinit that they are all of 
a "isionary character and complexion. My advice is, not to think of getting married ; it ap- 
pears like doing the busines; by the job Just keep quiet and you will be married soojj enough. 

Your poetry I have no doubt was very fine, but I did not e.xictly, as Lord Byron says, com- 
prehend it. The why, &c. You need not apologize for your letters, for they are always re- 
ceived with a cordial welcome. Sheriff Gansevoort is going to inake a rfsyeof it they say. There 
are no persons here with whom I associate but Denniston and King, and Henry Davis, conse- 
quently the town must be very dull to me. I think by present appearances that you will make 
money by your stock contract if you hold on. « « * * 

Yours most sincerely, E, LIVINGSTON. 



Speaker Livingston canvassing for the Clerkship of the Assembly. 
[No. 105.] Edward Livingston to Jesse Hoyt, New York. 

Albany, Dec. 21, 1821. — Dear Hoyt : I am fearful that Hatch is a snake in the grass, so be 
cautious. I have understood that Mat Davis is coming up to Albany with the members. I 
want to have him engaged in my favor. Judge [W. P.] Van Ness will do it for me, if you will 
mention it to him. * « * Benjamin Knower says he will not interest himself about the 
clerkship, but is committed to support Esleeck if he does any thing. Butler and Knower are 
Es'eeck's only friends, and [Judge] Skinner is alone in backing [Ephraim] Storr. * » * John 
Cramer has been very active in my behalf * * * James Burt, and every other man" who 
respects himself, will not vote for Vonderheyden. * * I wish that Gardiner would speak to 
Romaine for mo, and explain how things stand. I hope Hatch has written to Boston and spo- 
ken to Munson. I want you to have every member of the N. Y. delegation spoken with once 
more, and especially Mr. Verplanck, (by you,) who could, and I doubt not, will, do me much good, 
* * * I wish you would ask Butler, when he thinks that E. has no chance, if he would give 
me a lift. I was very sorry to learn that Mr. Ulshoeffer was determined to support Vonder- 
heyden. * * * E. LIVINGSTON. 

t Peter R. l.ivingston of Dutchess Co. was elected Speaker of the Assembly, by 117 out of 12.3 votes, in Jan. 1823. 
He was the most ultra of Governor Clinton's opponents In Jan. 1828, Mr. Livingston was elected President nf the 
Senate of N. Y., and has long been a most decided partisan of Henry Clay for the Presidency. Hammond describes 
him M " imaginatiTe and eloquent." 



166 THE WAY THE DEMOCRATIC LEAtlERS MANAGE ABOUT OFFICES. 

Noah's malignity— Ulshoeffer's cunning— Tompkins, Yates, Spencer, Crolius, fijc. 
[No. 106.] Edward Livingston (Speaker, &c.) to Jesse Hoyt, New York. 

Albany, .Tan. 21, 1822. — Dear Hoyt. * * * Our people all seem disposed to be in good 
humor with each other, and ridicule Noah's attempt to interest the party in his personal squab, 
blea, and suy that he makes an unjustifiable use of his paper to gratify his personal malignity. 
* * « Ulshoeffer is ev^n more cunning than I supposed him, before the accurate inspection 
I have given him for the last three weeks. As to President of the U. S. our people dont know 
what the devil to think. Tompkins drinks too hard— so they say. I wish our people would 
back the Secretary of the Navy [Smith Thompson], but he appears to have a small body of 
friends. His conduct about the post office here has done him some service — and Adams's letter, 

together with his 4th of July oration, is enough to D n any common man. Governor. I 

should like to have Yates chosen for it, but they say he will keep Spencer on the bench, which 
some people do not like. * * * I keep my toungc as close as possible, and attend to my 
own business. * * * I will get the Examiner birth for Ward if possible — if not, I will get 
it for you. Tell S. Cambreleng that I am satisfied, and so are the people here, that our mem- 
bers of Congress were entrapped into signing for S. Van Rensselaer [to be P. M. at Albany.] 
Crolius and Hale electioneered for each other. Hale was to make Col. Crolius speaker, and the 
favor was to be returned. Crolius is a « * * *, and I hope you will find ways and 
means to keen him at home. Believe me, as ever, your true and sincere friend, 

' E. LIVINGSTON. 

[No. 107.] Senator Van Buren to Jesse Hoit, Attorney-at-Law, N. Y. 

Georgetown, Col'a, Jan. 93, 1822. — Dear Sir : Be so good as to deliver the enclosed. We 
have nothing new here. The Bankrupt Bill is under discussion in the House— its fate is becom- 
ing more doubtful. Please to get and send me the American containing the numbers of 'the 
Federalist of 1789 ' published last summer. In haste, your friend, M. V. BUREN. 

[No. 108.] Senator Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt.— Washington, Jan. 28, 1822.— I have this 
moment received yours, for which I thank you, and beg of you as a favor to write me often on 
the .subject of the interesting concerns that agitate you. For the present, I have only to say that 
1 never heard of the report that Mr. Sanford would not accept one of the vacant missions until the 
receipt of your letter. Mr. King, however, heard such a suggestion. I am however entirely con. 
fident that that report had no influence on the question. 

In haste, yours truly, M. V. BUREN. 



iVio Bucktail no Office — a singular Chancery sale — ' Stop my Newspaper.^ 
[No. 109.] Speaker Livingston, to Jesse Hoyt, N. York. Albany, March 26, [1822.] 
Dear Hoyt : I was unable to procure the appointment of W^ard as an E.Kaminer in Chancery, 
as they thought here that Hfi HAD NOT BEEN A BUCKTAIL LONG ENOUGH, and 
they would not let your merits count in his favor: I therefore changed my ground and had you 
appointed.! I hope this will be grateful to you and my friend Ward. Let Ward act as your 
sworn clerk. It is supposed the legislature will adjourn about the 10th of April: the sooner the 
better. Everything in the political way goes on smoothly. Young looks as if he had been bled ; 
I feel sorry for unsuccessful candidates. I think in this state we ought to have a peculiar 
prayer for such people, and especially one in the common Prayer Book. I shall soon have the plea- 
sure of seeing you, Write me a long letter. Yours sincerely, E.LIVINGSTON. 

[No. 110.] Same to same. Albany post mark, May 14, 182 — ."T have abandoned all 
idea of settling at Albany. The chancellor has been so much perplexed, harrassed of late that 
he this day permits his furniture to be sold at sheriff's sale and bought in.| This will be my 
apology to you for this short letter * * * Seymour, it is supposed, is elected in the Wes- 
tern District. Make me one of the Committee in the first ward [of N. Y.] for nominating. Tell 
Hatch to attend to it." 

I 

t Hammond tells iic, in pn^'e llti of liis 2ri(l volume, timt under the luw of party, then and now prevailing, the 
fJovernor miiMl carry into elleci the wishes of his political friends ; that is, he is a mere tool of the faction of the 
hour, and must name to the Senate iis tit candidates for office, whoever a caucus or county majority ol politicianfi 
may dictate. 'I'his is .setting repiihlirau gdvernnicnt at dcfmnce. 

It hiid been the cu.stom to ai)point i\ nntnry-public for each hank, and as he was a hank ajf nt the Oirectors named 
him, without reference to his politico. The amended constiuilion vacated all ottices — Chester Bnlklcv, teller of 
the state hank .\ll)anv, was recommeniied liy the Directors for re-appointmetit. He was a moral man of high char- 
acter, otid an elder of B. F. Butler'* favorite church, hut because he dilt'ered a little from Van Ruren's party cau- 
cus system, the senat/? rejected Governor Yates's nomination, and refused to let that petty otlice he filled by any 
other than one of their creatures ! The next move was the .Safety Fund, thro' which bank sioi-k, direotori, offi- 
cers, the county presses, and the public credit were converted into state machinery for the elevation of Van Burcn 
aud the wliolefule plunder of the public. 

(Can thii allude to Chancellor Kent? / 



HARD TIMES WITH VAN RUREN LIVINGSTONES GOSSIP, 



187 



[No. 111.] M. V. Buren, to Jesse Hoyt.— Albany, June 2d, 1822. Dear Sir- I wish vou 
would pay my old friend Mr. Carter,t what I owe him, and ask Mm to discontLThlspZr It 
IS UNNECESSARY TO SAY that I am influenced in this solely by a necessitv to curtail mv exmnses of 
that description which are too heavy. Your friend, M V^^bSrEn! 

Ulshoeffcr praised-Gihbons the Butcher-Hoyt- Van Buren-Offices-Swearing, Hc-Jacoh 

Barker. 

[No 1 12.] Edward Livingston, Albany, to Jesse Hoyt, N Y 

showers ' My dear'^Ho;:t " ->f ^'^'t%^ S:^ D n"/ ""' ^"^"^'' '^'^ ^""'^''^ ^^^^^^'^'"°" 
n,P^fT^,^r 1 / 1 I ■ . ^ o""^ '"end Don .Tuan, queer as it may seem, reminds 

n.e of Lord Coke for he says thai it is not from many books that a man deriveth know^^d^e but 
from the well understanding of a few. «*« Mr Van Buren i« hprrhnr , T ^ ' 
Schoharie this week with .lud.e Sekinner. to sefsul^lL" Vow le^ U shS L^m^e'^on" 
llTd h 'f T ''''' ^:;" ""^ ''' ^"^'^ ^'^ ^^'•'^^'^ him down, as I think him the floT'o the flock "nd 

be nen" A h oT ""' f'^'""-^ ""f f ^""^''^ '^"'"'"'^"'^ '"'" ^° ^'^ RepvMican ;w/, L on oJ N 
best men. About your being crazy, I do not feel alarmed, for you have already had the strenPth 

t'chi^flurceT'Grbbl'^l'TVr''^"^^"""!^"'"^^- *' * HowSJ^^'itS?, 
Huzirfor ,!n vp!^ Iff .'•'"■ "^""'^ '° h^ '"='>'°'' °^ ^'^'^"y' ^"'J Southwick governor, 

rerhans .Hd n l'"f 'f ', ""'''/ connected with universal knowledge and honesty, you would 

P iZl in ^ Tl" ^ ^''^' f'- ^"^ •^"'^^ •'"'^^^ W. W. Van Ness come on, and is Wm 
f. going to South America ? Amen, so be it, says Jesse. « * » * 

rxr 11Q1 rr^v Yours sincerely, ED. LIVINGSTON. 

[r^o lid.] The same to same. Albany, July 18, 1822.— ***** We had a frolic 4th 

h d a Lt"l 't™;'r 'r'^^'/'f "'^' '^"'^^^ ^"'^'' •^- S'— "' P«t- Ganse!"ort! &c 'We 
Beeek ldS'v.?r "%'^^^^ or ten days since, when I sat betwe;n Mawne 

funes of ZeM .hi "■'"' ^""f''''''"^ ^'^^ «he latter sundry protestations, &c. The For- 
mine * * Yo„ wS '^°'"'"'^"^'' ""f 7^"'"^' «"d l^«Pe -hey may be better than either yours or 
tTcJe't vou liM J n ?7""" ^""'^ ''"' ^"'^ '" ^''^ Y"^"^- If y"" ^«" g'^' o" the [Assembly] 
he e • WhoTs ,h rHov tr^"'" V "t"^ T '""'=^ ^^ ^^^ '^^"^^ ^""^ Albany friends. They asked 
Sr&c?' Th. =?^ ^l T ^?''.'' ^h"' r'' ""Saged in a cause in Rhode Island, with Web- 
a coming to !' '""'' ''"' ^' ' ^^' ^"'"' ^'''^'' '' ""'^ '^'^y-' ^^^"' ^^at's this world 

throS'in'thHi'^df'n' \«22.-My Dear Jesse, * * * * The people here are .such cursed misan- 

mJ^.^'.'fMti August 13, 1822, Albany. (Please 6,mahis letter.) Dear Hoyt * * * * since 
TxtoSiv von '^^^"^ ''L^>d your w""'^'^^^"^ perseverance and various other estimable qua "ies 
Be^^re oLlZ 1 "'"'i- ^ '""."''^ *"'" '^" "^"^ '•^^'' "^"^ "'*" ""^ ""^^e you vain. * * * 
al wLs Zf te 1'^" 'V"°r "V' "?''^ °f yo-self, for Solomon sayeth. " Take heed to 
a uords tha are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee." * * * Court was very full 

doerSuVv fa^'ou 'i'l'r'''/"^^ T'T- ^^^' ^^^"'^ '« '^^ S-^^- f-- ^ "s dIsTri t 
sL,em. r. t A f ' 'r" '^'^'•'^,"''' ""-^ Wood worth are currently spoken of as Judges of the 
feup.eme Court. All in doubt about Chancellor. How would you like Sava-e for Atton ev 

Sinli Wh^':'%'^Tr''"- * * * I have left offSweanng', Chewing, an^d Smoking n^ 
situn on^" rl. . ^«"/of a mixture! * - * The old rule was to bring your mind to your 

SeaJe Lr fh T'''^:,"'^""''^''^ is poverty coupled with magnificent notions, ^e 
Wh. wn1,i^ T "'!'h,^'^«';.«"'J g^t up to wine-not with wine and come down to cider. * * * 
Sv "v BaXn'. ^1 Chancellot^Harmanus Bleecker, Nathan Sanford, or -acob Barker? 
1 hey say Barker is the only man who will be able to keep up with in the rapidity 

No t: I "ratw' f,7r"r'"VS'^f^ ^'"^ "-^"^er Van Buren nor Jacob will St' 
iNo telling what would take place if Southwick should succeed ! * * * Believe me, as ever, 

Your sincere friend, E. LIVINGSTON. 

E. Livingston to Jesse Hoyt—HoyVs appointment— the Elections. 

V>Sr%ll^'^i\ ■ . , Albany, November 1, 1822. 

™J> ^ . •'"^' received your letter stating that my dear friend, Mr. Cooper, had 

made a vacancy for you to fill up. To thank him becomingly, would be my great joy Now 
in sober truth, what could be better than to have you and clrdiner both here'?' You'have el-' 
wTv« 1^ expectations, for I did not think that you could get the nomination. Gardiner. I al- 
ways thought could come when he pleased to make the effort. The ticket is a good one, and 

H. h aTu ' """ >" ''"P;^'''"'- ■^'''•'•' ?""»■ ■^"'"«* has too romantic a name f..?a legislator 
He had better go too New England and get christened afresh. Our people here were all in hopes 
that you would get the nomination, and I doubt not will be joyful on the occasion. We caku! 



103 HOVT A LEGISLATOTI— SECRETARY YATES-^RtSJELL H. KEVINS- 

he should be ^'^C'^'^// "\;f '?f . '''X^^ it i, ,aui, will be elected to Congress in his d.s- 

tb. licket-hkes ll.e t.ckel. &.C. ""."''■•7'' f,,' " J,' "h,,™ ,„ „„d v,m Ihe R.*. or >he 

S:.' ri'S: rihcrtrif,.' ;';°:'."f t tisi,, e.c.d. •• r*. ./»o™«, 

iHr.'ifoyt"— it looks well, and hope it will sound well. Am en. 

Secretary J. V. N. Yates's Courteous Ejnstle to a 3Iemher elect. 

rw 1 1R 1 John Van Ness Yates, Albany, to Jesse Hoyt N. Y. , .. . 

A ^^°' Nnl.mberSth 1822.-Dear Sir: Permit me to congratulate you on your election to 

^^'^f^'n^hlv To find an ir6a«/«« after so short a residence in the metropolis of our state 

the Assembly. ^^ "^^"^ ,he confidence of his republican brethren, ,s no small proof 

n.,ng l"to Jtice anj se u mg he^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^ can equally penetrate into. 

IS/apSt^a^ter^f^ 

Fan £«rc?t no« fond of the third heavens in the 31. H. 
rMn 1171 fTo J Hovt.l-Nov. 14, 1822. Dear Sir-Why did I not see more of you 
[No. UM 11" qu;,„;p,. Qpneral Maicv and myself will come down with Saturdays 

U "^TJZVJ^if^^ls^^^^^^ Mechal^ics' Hall. If he can give us his lutle 

' r r sU.ir"room 5nd bed rooms, it will be well ; if not any other good moms will do. so 

parL.r for a «'' "f ^""^^^""''j ,^^^,ij rather stay onboard a vessel thm go int.. his third h.-av.ns. 

If" oYam.obe"efyou\r; let General Jla^cy's room be on high and he c^n Ijav.^die use 

if mv room to do his business in, &c . In haste . your tr.end. M. V. BURDN. 

Arcell knou^n WaU St. B.^e.s Instruct. o^^^^ 

'^''ti'rf' Ii^mention ng fh ob"^ o^^^^ W^ B'H. ^ w.s rather toencourage a more extensive 
?; £ fn. thtT: rr:,Send no!ie at all. Perh.ps his view of .he matter is more correct than 
mine- md it mic'ht be attempting mo much to go furiher at this time. 

Bland ^'.°"J^'"°"^ ' % „_,„„„/es of sound m><d,m, of magnanimous policy ; confiding in tl 

Lennined, I 'annot forbear repeating the sentiment so often in every mata's mouth, Who., . 

^ D;> tt'mt at Albany consider how farthe efil-cts of such a measure .-y;7ch? It wilhic . 
simply Toud, the pocket; of the rich. The inhabitant of the Log House will feel it too. WL , 

. Mr. Yate. wa, a ,oa ofChief ..n.ice V^te, a j,,^^ rehUu. of losepl, ^ «-, 

der of .Mbnnv, tille.l the oir.ce .,1 Scrrrtary of « '-^'t, .o 1/^;^ No H^ "ml Imd the .listnl.-linn of tl,e gr- 
,nke. a. the bnrktail canHHlato t,.r r..nernor. who .r^reeded m N^ reappointed .T V. N. V. 

offices of ..atr. under the new consi,t anon '" i\^ ^X^ vv Man v'. c ompeti.^^ but Van Buren. thon^h . 
8err..ary, and Marzy as ^"■"P"''''",. ''f"- J"'^"" ''^'l.ri fl^^^^^^^^^ vninlv exerted lor Tallmad » 

Wa.h.nKton. did h,. utmost to .,ppo,e \ ounp "/'''^ \[-""f;„ X''^ yTn Buren nnrtv-and in Feb. 18-2ti, he was -e- 
Mr. y«tc. w«» a friend of Adam*, and opposed .o ^.'e ^^'^^J- ;'• ^^"retav of State ; with M.rcy again as comp 
moved bv the lep,.lat,.re. 8,, vtes to 3 ' ■ '' ' '' A ; C"^,^ «f ^^j "^.^ ,7„ ,'„ ,d „« gather lax in hi. morals, sociable, anc 
trailer, and Talc.t «'V'J''«,!;/ir; '„,,.),." ed . rh,!n. too fond of Tompkuts. liked Southwick, and wa, dl. 
^^ZZ:::^^r^ uru;XV>UUi,«» .a tU. .any .ag.. ,f th, war. 



A WALL ST. BROKER UNFOLDING THE M\\^TETIIES OF STOCK-JOSBING. 189 

is it that a Fanrier in the State of New York can borrow on his Land, and thus prevent fre- 
quently his own ruin, when in some of our neighboring States, such a thing is too vain ever to 
be attempted? What hut our Laws, together with the great flow of capital that comes here to 
be invested. When will the Canal Loans be taxed ? When the State has no longer occasion 
to borrow. Will the holders of our Bank and Insurance Stocks have any confidence in the ex- 
emption of the Canal Stock from ta.\iition any longer than the State wants to borrow? Will 
not the argument be among Men of Properiv, that it is better to place their property in Stoek of 
the United States, or in the United Slates Bank 1 Are not the friends of the latter looking on 
now in high exultation at the prospect of their prediction coming about sooner than their own 
wishes had expe'-ted it? " The United States Bank toill crush all the Slate Banks." This has 
been for a long time the cry. Will our Legislature do ail they can to help on such a result ? 
Will they not rather put a stop at once to tlie whole project, and by an overwhelming vote quiet 
apprehensions whicli never ought to have been raised? Harm enough has been done already. 
The States of Coimecticut and New .Jersey have driven away Capital to a large amount by tax. 
ing Bank Stock. Real Estate has fallen in various parts of these States to half what it v.'as ; and 
in some instances the depreciation has been two-thirds. What has left them has come to us. 
The next jilace it will go to if the tax passes, will he into United States Bank Stock, &c. 

I understand it to be a very frequent remark of those in favor of ta.xing, that the personal pro- 
perty taxed in the city of New York, is very small to what it ought to be ; and inproof of it, the 
amount of Bank Capital, &c., is cited. 

Suppose we have a new bank in the Bowery, with a million capital — or let it be five millions 
if you please. Will any man undertake to say it would increase the amount of personal property 
in'theciiy? ^"^ hat would be necessary to make up such a bank? Only a few thousand dol- 
lars of specie, and bank credits for the balance. 

Suppose, fi.r argument sake, a man is worth SiO.^OO, and it consists of 100 United States 
Bank shares. He would subscribe to a new Bank— he borrows ^10,000 on his stock — and as 
likely as not may put down for four times that sum in the new concern, for probably 25 pft 
cent of the money may be all that is called for, and his notes for the balance. Or, if the 
whi lie [amount of stock at once] is to be paid in, it is only for him by a hille management 
to borrow of the Bank, or of A. B. and C. by a pledge of his stock. Behold then how our cap- 
itals are made up I— ^.'■)0,000 ! where there is only in fact $10,000. Verily there is more per- 
sonal property taxed than exists. 

Contrast the character of our State secuiities with any around us, or in any part of the Union. 
Is there one of the whole number that has the least credit in a foreign country ? There is a 
Canal stock of the State of Pennsylvania, bearing an interest of G per cent, the payment of 
which {interest) is guaranteid for twenty years by the State, and it now sells iti Philadeljihia at 
97 per cent. Our Canal stock having twenty three years to run will briiig II Oi per cent : it 
may be said that the Pennsylvania does not g-jarantee the ultimate payment of the principal, 
there is i";rce in the remark; but to make up for that iher-- is every prospect that the Canal it- 
self will be venj productive. Such a stock in our State I have not a doubt would be worth 107 
or 108 per cent. 

Write me again and often. 1 promise you I will not again trouble you with any long let. 
ters. Dont get out of patience when you see Men act like fools, remembering always that it is 
in every day matter, and would keep one always in a ferment. I make this remark because 
\ou speak of being tired of legislation. Keep cool and try to persuade our counirv friends 
if their error Yours in much friendship, tR. H. NEVINS. 

The Sentinel to be the New York Patriot— C. K. Gardner. 
[No 119 1 W. Wilev, New York, to .Tesse Hoyf at Albany. 

New YoRK.'.Tanuary 2f5, 1823. Dear Sir: The bearer, Mr. Ketchum, proceeds to Albany 
ro.inorrow mornino-,and I have availed myself of the opportunity of tendering my tnanks f..r 
vonr attention to the Sentinet.. A prosiiectus is iss^ued for the establishment of a daily news- 
per imder the title of the t" New York Patriot," which we expect to be able to issue within a 
jMr. Rnsiiel H. Kevins was one of the Vice Pre-iiflcnts of the jreiit AnIi-Te.xas-annexation meeting, tit wliich Al- 
bert Gallatin presided in the Tabernacle, Broadway, New York. 

' Co\ Ch'i-les K Ciirdne' conducted tlic Pn««of,Mr. Henry Wlieaton aided in peftin;' it up, and Hammond 
tolls iH tint Mr. Cail.oim very pn.bably exerted himself in starting it. It took a deeded stand asa.nsl Cr.iw- 
l-.rd Van I'.nren. and his Ue-encv. Gardner had been aid to Genl. Rrov.n dnrinfr ho war ami ys afterwards 
AsMsrant P. JI. General. ' Tliis oflicc he again filled under Parry and Kendnll, and it is said that he is now p.isf- 




Jlr'crawfo^d' sVirthe'KtrIol'le\""the;Vhave't'he'eTe""ction, and the minority will cheerfully agree to iheir declared 
This proiiosal was resisted by Van Buren, Fla-g, W.ight, Butler, Hoy1,Marcy and other pretended 



friends' of freedom, but assented to by Governor Clinton an.l hi.< supporters. \Vright, elected a senator under a 
pledse to sn),port a bill giving the people the choice of electors, wheeled into .me under Van Buren, and voted 



190 



THE ALBANY ARGTrs A POIJTirAL MACIlINEj BIOVEP BY V. RURE\ & CO. 



short period. The Sentinel will then, of course, be merged, and our subscribers served with the 
daily paper. ***** ^y ^yiLEY. 

A Central Press, under Van Barents control, essential to the successful working of his Partii 
JIachinery. — The Albany Argus. 
[No. 120.] Senator Van Buren to his friend Jesse Hovt. Jan'y 31, 182.S 

My Dear Sir: lam overwhelmed with the account of poor' Cantine's death. "l know that 
nothmg from me can be necessary to secure your zealous attention to Mrs. Cantine's interest if 
anythmg can be done for her. I have written to Mr. Hoes to be at Albany ; you will tind him 
a most useful man. I have also written to Mr. Buel, which letter I want you to see Amonrr 
you all you must do the bc.«t you can. If anything can be done for Mrs. C. I hope and be" 
heve no republican will oppose it. MR. HOES AND MYSELF ARE RERPON.^IBLE TO 
MR. BUEL FOR S1500 of the last payment. If nothing better can be done, no person ought 
at least to be appointed who had not preciously purchased the establishment : and under no circum- 
stances ought anyone to be appointed who is not a sound, practicable, and ABOVE ALL 
DISCREET republican. WITHOUT A PAPER THUS EDITED AT \lB^NY WE 
MAY HANG OUR H.IRPS ON THE WILLOWS.t With it, the PARTY can survive a 
thousand such convulsions as those which now agitate and prohablu alarm most of those around 
you. Make my sincere thanks to Mr. Duer and IVIr. Sutherland for their kind letters, and tell 
them I will write them soon. in haste, yours truly, M. VAN BUREN. 

Judge Betts— Noah— Leake— the State Printer—' Nolo Episcopari,' with variations—' my views 

are humble.' 
[No. 121.] Extracts of letters, Judge Michael Ulshoeffer, to Jesse Hoyt, at Albany. 
. New York, Feb. 3, 182.3.-Dear Sir : * « * AH eyes are directed towards Albany, and 
your proceedings have been of such a character as to keep alive public interest and expectation 
Let me know who is to be put in [Judge] Betts's placed— who will be comptroller— and why the 
appuintments to be made by the legislature are delayed— who is tobe our circui> and fir^t jiidt^e 
&c.? I regret to learn by your letters, that in settUng the salaries of the Judges, some feeling' 
growmgout of the nominations, may bf experienced. It was a surprise to me'thot Governor 
Yates nominated the Judges before their salaries were fixed by law. It was not good policy 
Was the strong vote against Betts, evidence of the strength of the opposition to him or to the 
Executive, or was it only evidence of Young and Tallmadge's strength ? Or how was it to be 
accounted for ? 

I presume that our city appointments are to be recommended by the members, at least I have 
been informed that such is the wish of the Governor. Will your friend Noah consent to this "?— for 
Isee by his paper that he rules at Albany, and that those who offend him are to receive no quarter 
Pray infirm me whether he is authorized to say, as he does in his paper, that all who are not 
his friends had belter stay at home or not offer their names at Albany this winter ? What are 
you doing about state printer, will not Leake obtain it? Let me also know whether anv open 
or concert -d opposition is made, or making aeainst the Governor. I must a>Tr,in trouble you 
respecting a small appointment in this city. William A. Seely, Esq. whose business is niucli in 
the collecting line, is anxious to be continued a notary, and desires to be remeniber.jd to vou. 
Heretofore, no consideration of politics has governed in these minor appointments, and for that 
reason I have without hesitation written to you in behalf of several of the present incimihems 
IVhnt is to be done in this respect hereafter, you must determine. I feel some anxiety respect- 
ing H. Westervelt, who wishes to be a notary, who has always been a repuUican and has a 
large family. Do not forget him. You see I have given you room to write me a long letter at 
your leisure. Yours truly, M. ULSHOEFFER. 

t On tlie 2.'')th of August, in ]P2()^.Iea«fi Bnel tmnsferrad Jiis intere'^t in the Albany Argus to Cantiue & I.e:ike. n(- 

" * .T„_-^. , ,-.. ,„..„, . ^^ 

1(1 




Uurcn hiiviris procured himself lo be. made Senator nf the United Statr.i Inj the legislative caVcvr—I far the mninr- 
tti/ were agnin.H Aim)— then Hirccleil the n.lhuviu; a|)p.)i»tnients to ho miide, vij : J. [. Van Men the hiilf hrotlier 
ol Mcirtin Surrnj.ite nndto be the n.^islunt Jn.lijc ..f the common pleas; Mnrtin's brother. Abraham V.in llnrou 
to be Clerk : n Mr. VA ilc.ixon. who is the pnrlner ..IVaii Alen. who is ihe brother of Martin, to he Dinrirt \itor- 
nev ; Cornel ns Ho?ebi...m, who is the hr..(berin-law of Abraham, who is the brother of Martm is an afli.lnit 




I Samnol R. netts. no-.v IT. P. D. C. Judio, Xeu- York, was nominated bv Governor Yates, in .lanuarv IH^t ns 
n supreme eoiiri indjc ,in.ler the new ciri.tllufion, an-l rejected bv the Senate, while Sutherland, n.iminatrd'wilii 
tuin, was cofifirmcd. B'.-tls was next nominated by Yates as a circuit judge, and the tame Senate us-enfeil 



Imer 



ICAN ?rERCHANT<; DENOUNCED AS A BAND OF MALIGNANT TRAITORS. 191 



[No. 122.]— New York, Feb. 18, 1823.— With respect to the Comptrollcrship, I can only 
say that it was not desired by me, and that I had so written before I received your kind letter. 
I have no such views, I assure you. Even that highly respectable situation would not tempt 
me to leave here and reside at Albany: Nor do I desire to be made, first judge in any event. 
iU^ news fire mare humble, and I have no intention at present to become a candidate for any 
ottice beyond that of a Notary Public. Accept, however, my grateful thanks for your friendly 
intentions, and it I have an opportunity, I will reciprocate. Do not make a State Printer, who 
wil transfer the feuds of New York to Albany, and throughout tlie State. Dulness would be 
preierable to indiscretion. Do look to this. I regret that the appearance of things is unpropi- 
lious at Albany. But is it necessary to oppose Governor Yates? Will not things go on 
smoothly in future ? If the members of A.ssembly have recommended the county Judtrea, how 
comes It that the Governor nominated Barstow, &c. ? Has not the Governor rompTied with 
the members' wishes in this respect? But I must conclude with my queries, in the confident 
expectation of another interesting letter from you whenever you are at leisure, or in a humor to 
write to your ob. st. and friend, * lyi. ULSHOEFFER. 

TheN. Y. delegation puffed— Hoyt's Oratory— Public Opinion wJiimsical—TIie Merchants of 
New \ork deceptive, traitors in war, and not to he trusted in peace— General Broion-Help 
Brake to a place. 

[No. 12.3.] .Tames Campbell. Surrogate, New York, to Jesse Hoyt, Assembly Chamber Albany 
,u ^7" \-'''^' ^y}'- ^•'' ^^~3.— Dear Sir : * * * * You wish to know in what estimation 
the JNew Y ork delegation are held by their constituents. As fir as I can ascertain public opin- 
ion, yoit stand veil ; indeed I hcUcve I hazard nothing in asserting thai ice have had no Reprc. 
scntatwn from tins City tor several years past that has given half the satisfaction. Recollect, 
however, that you have not as yet more than half finished vour labors ; that public opinion is a 
very uncertain and precarious thing— more easily lost than acquired : and altho' things look fair 
nt present, I would not bp at all surprised if, at the end of the Sessions, some of you should find 
yourselves as unpopular as certain of your predecessors. From the debates which are published 
''' ff J '" ^"'^ ''^^^ ^"" frequently address the House ; and, without designing to flatter you' 
It affords me pleasure to observe that your exhibitions as a speaker, do you no discredit I was 
mucn .amused with that debate, wiiere you had the courage to enter the lists, and to break a lance 
with the great Demagorgon of our State. His attack on the merchants was unnecessary and 
nnreasonnble ; at the same time, you must pardon me for te\\in<r you tliat, in mv opinion, your 
defence of them displays more of the spirit of chivalry than sound judgment. Of the conduct of 
this class of men in the Revolutionary war, I can say nothing, but during the late war, I feel no 
hesitation in sayinsr that the nation is very little indebted to their patriotism. The merchants 
by which denomination I mean the shippers and importers, as a body, opposed the war, and by 
their great weight and influence, they were but too successful in embarassing the operations of 
the Government. Their conduct in this memorable contest, was the more culpable and fla^i- 
tious, because it was in a great degree owing to their clamors, and chieflv to protect their fn. 
terests, ihat the Government was induced to take the firm stand which resulted in hostilhies It 
was a holy, a .sacred war, declared and waged to protect Free Trade and Sailors' Rights, and 
siiould have enkindled into a blaze every latent feeling of Patriotism. At the commencement 
of the war. these votaries of the Counting Desks it is true, made some professions of public spirit 
whilst the (Tovernment held over their heads their forfeited bonds ; but when their remission was 
procured, they then dropped the mask, and how violently, malignantlv, I may add traitorously 
they subsequently acted, is too strongly impressed on our recollections to be easily or speedily 
obliterated. \ ou say that General Brown was a merchant. Do vou then consider a village 
storekeeper a merchant ? If I remember right, this same gentleman was once a school-master. 
Accordinji tlierefore to this mode of reasoning, we may yet expect to see the gentlemen of the 
birch and ferule also asserting their pretentions to Patriotism, because this same person wrs form'^rlv 
a member of their humble but useful fraternity. The merchants, as a body, pos.sessing great 
wealth and intelligence, must nece.ssarily e.xercise a great deal of influence in every community • 
nor have they ever been known to be wanting in availins; themselves of the advantages of this 
mfiuence, or of being backward in urging their claims to superior consideration It is a dan- 
gerous thing, in my opinion, to flatter a set of men already too inflated, and always disposed lo 
he too arrogant ; and altho' they are entitled to their share of weight in our National Councils I 
should regard it as a most unfortunate event to see the destinies of our hapoy country committed 
to the guidance or control of mercantile power and policy. 

inL^.l'r''"^.'/''''""'''*!' 'I " cunnin? politici.in, :ind plnyetl the dema?o?ue in the legislature Ion" enouch to secure a 
of the e'i- nfiJ!""'^ "^ r^T' T''r- ■ ^\''"" "" ^^''" Clinton had concluded his nnnn" "peecHf the o, enfnt 
ol the lejii.latve session I Ishoeffer obtained a committee of inquiry, and reported, in sul.^tai oe that for a Gover" 

Te anJilr.he^", ^""'\T' ",''"' *'' Y '" ^^'>' '"^^'""j '"''''"' "^ ^"'«*"S it on paper aXendinl H aVa n,e - 
t^n» 1 r >^ to reply to such a speech no mntier how discreet it mav he, " is a remnant of rovnltv " " and o.ial.t 
to oe aboli5hed." T^nrtoubtedly a speech is the most respectful mode oi" the two. ^ ^ ' ° 



1C2 V. BUREN WITHHOLDS THE STATE PRINTING FROM NOAH — JACOB BARKEIl. 

This teHiouK digression about your speech has swelled this beyond the ordinaiy dimensirns of 
a leiier ; an effect whicii I did not foresee, or ! should have tiikcn care to have avoided it. Other 
jnatrcTs that I intended to communicate, niusr be deferred to a future occasion. I would thank 
y.iu ti> exert yourself lor iny friend Mr Drake, who is an applicant f.r the office of Master in 
Chancery. Drake is quite a fine fellow, and.I should he much gratified to hear of his obtaining 
this situation. Uc has nol been a Clintonian for some years, and when he was one, he w;is a 
fair and moderate opponent. Give tny resnccts to vour colleagues, Mr. Rithbom; and .Mr. Ver- 
planck. Your friend, - t.IAMES CAMPBELL. 

Noah after the Printing — Bael's fortune — Piddling State Patronage — being true to ^CTcach 

other. 
[No. 124 ] M. M. Noah to .lesse Hoyt, Albany. New Yokic, 23d Feb. 1823. 

Dear Hoyt ;«*»** Mr. Phillips will hand you this, and e.\p!ain fully the object of 
his visit. With respect to the State Printing. I cannot but consider my-elf as unhandsomehj 
treated by those from icliom I had a right to expect a different course ; and am positive that on 
thu (Jea'h of Mr. Cantiie there was but one voice in my favor. If nianngemeat and intrigue 
cou d h ive b en s.) successfully exerted as to wenn away my friends or impair my claims, then 
there is noihinsj to expect from the justice of the Republican party. I cannot blame Mr. Buel 
in wishing to b. secured in the paymenis due him, but considering the difficulty we labored uu. 
der in bringing the Akgi;s in the republican from the Clintonian ranks — considering also the 
fortune which Mr. Buel has made nut of it — 1 ihink that opposition does not come with a good 
^racc from bun, and tliat aiy further survicllance over the State Printing should cease. * * * « 
1 am n >i so certain thai I can be defeated — but if so, I am willing to hazard a defeat, reserving 
to myself the rit,'ht of spreading the ficts before the wmid, «//rf exhibit the system of jieddUng 
away the pntroiiniie of the Stale, * * ^ * Mr. Phillips, goes up to get a section, authori- 
zing leiTiil notic. s to be pnbli-^hed in the advocate . . . it is jvecessary IN RL^LATION TO 
'I'tTi:^ "PREdlDEN'TlAL QUESTION. . . . He has full powers from me to enter i-nto 
any irrangement, or come to any understanding, ichich may tend to keep things harnwniously 
and comfiirtably njloul, and prevent schism and division in our ranks — this can only be done by 
aeting justly and fairly towards \]0'each other. 

Always, Dear Hoyt, truly yours, M. M. NOAH. 

Jacob Barker's prospects — he likes ' the fuu' of War in Europe, and desires to see Young Nap, 

crowned, 
[No. 125.] Jacob Barker, at New York, to Jesse Hoyt, at Albany. — Ni;\v York, 1:3th 

March, 1823. My Dear Sir: I have this moment committed to the flames, a sheet * * * * * 
As soon as steam takes the place of ice, I perceive we are to have the pleasure of seeing you — I 
hope it will be soon, for many reasons, and particularly because Capt. Barker would be triad to 
see you before he goes south. He has rfr.-olved with the John Wells — she goes into Byrnes and 
Tremble's Liverpool line, and Barker goes to Mobil-n to try his hand again at Merchandizing, 
jiaving declined to command a line ship. He left for Boston this day — returns in ten days, when 
he will be one of the firm of Barker & Co. Haileck is in great spirits. * * « « J have 
no news to tell )ou — am poor, out of business, with bad prospects, yet cannot but smile at the 
frea<s of fortune — money very scarce, stocks falling. I have sold my bale [or coal] — lost !$352 by 
jt — so wc go. I thank my friend Davis for this favor — 1 hope the like will be scarce. The Ex- 
change labors not likely to succeed. What tiiink you of the application for the Tradesmeu'.s 
Bank? I feed an interest in i(s favor on account of Mr. Worth — yet I cannot believe it will 
pass. Mr. Rnss sent his ship I\Iary to Norfolk, whore she loaded and sailed from Jamaica — from 
thence she goes to Mobile — from thence to Liverpool. She will probably make him a great voy. 
age, while I, a poor devr/I, am not niaking anything But, nevertheless, very glad of it. Tiie 

t .Mr. C.iinnlirll dilikps the mprclinnfs ; Iloyt, when in ofTinp, was iinwenriprl in his pffiirts to harrass and nnnov 
them ; BiUlcr nnil \iin I'.nren were his mentors In that course; Itirphanl, from the 'I'reasiiry, ndvisps the mnrshil 
to diitfrdnchise them on iiiries: and the fulluwia;,' is tin extract of a letter fruin Jucuh Uuiker to \V. L. Aluckeazn", 
duted New Orle.-ins. Oct'. '21. 18 Ci : 

■' It is true tiiiit Mr X'iui Huron [and Samuel Voun?] did snpport Ktifus King for a seat in the United Ptnles 
Renote, at u time when the repnhhcun party was distracted with dissenslems, and when the Kinjs, the Hamiltons, 
tlie IJuer.s, the Verphincks and the Banners had seceded from the Federal party, priilessing great faith in llie Ivc- 
niihlican party, and. like most now converts, were amun^' the fireniost in support of the most ultra measures. Mr. 
Van Buren considered an alliance with these men the hcst way to secure the su[)reniacy of the party, and with 
that view pave to .Mr. Kin? his fullest 9U|)port, ami he was appointed. 1 di/Vered wiih hiin on the sul.ject, and en- 
deavored to dissiiiide him from his course. I did not tinnk it just towards the members of our own piirty to select 
one of the Tield Marshals of the enemy on whom to confer the most honoralile and elevated places within tliepifl 
of the parly. I CDnsielered Mr. King loi aide. |)olito, ■.'cnlk'ninnly m:oi, tuliy worlliy of the I'ri'sidency uf the Uni- 
ted !*latcs if his own piirlv were in the inniority, but 1 hud heard him, in a speech to the merch.oils at the 'I'ontino 
Coffee House, while the lileedinp corpse of I'enrce was lying on the deck of the Mail Boat, where he had been mur- 
dered by a cannon ball from a Ilritinb ship of war, I believe the Lennder oO' Barnegat, dcrliire ihut the hands of 
Jefferson were dved in the blood of his countryman, that unfortunate I'earce, for the reason that he had not resisted 
the Berlin and Milan Decrees, and thereby saved Britain the necessity she wn? under of sending a fleet to our 
cosit," 



PARTY DRILL CANDIDATES — LAW TRIUMPHS OVER JUSTICE. l93 

affaire nf Europe are somewhat agitated — I FEAR the fun will be of very short duration. Yet 
if John Bull supports Spain immediately and with all her might, there may be fine fun — or if the 
French army are worth a copper, they will, when organized, proclajne young Nap emperor — ap- 
point a regency — and, with the aid of Spain and Portugal, sustain the same. Austria would co. 
operate, and Russia would not meddle, but turn her attention towards Turkey. These things, 
however, are to be wished rather than expected. Yours, sincerely, JACOB BARKER. 

Civic Economy — James prays Fervently for the Party — all the Presidential Candidates demO' 
crats — Our old foes — James likes Adams worst, Crawford best, Clay next — Jackson is not even 
named. 

[No. 12G.] James Campbell, Surrogate, N. Y. to J. Hoyt, Albany. 

New York, March, 1823. — Dear Sir * * * * Our coiporation, you have perceived, 
have commenced their operations in good earnest. The salaries of some of the offices in their 
gift were unquestionably too high. The offices of District Attorney and Clerk, of the Sessions, 
for instance, would well admit of considerable reductions and still remain good offices. In 
their ardent zeal for retrenchment, I cannot but think that they have gone too far in cutting down 
the compensation of the latter officer to the paltry sum of ,$1250 I The allowance, in my opinion, 
ought to have been at least ,$2000. To be frank with you, I think our Corporation are at pre. 
sent undertaking to do a great deal too much ; and if they are not restrained in theircareer they will 
assuredly destroy the preponderance of the Republican Party in this city. Courts, Police, Jus- 
tices, Collectors of Taxes, and I know-not how many other things, are to be changed ; and what 
is most singular, in all this business, several of these alterations instead of being agreeable to the 
People, are very obnoxious. For my part, I confess that I am weary of these incessant changes, 
and that I long to see something like permanence once more estaljlished in our city and state. 
As I do not wish to incur the hostility of the Corporation, ynu must consider this as confi. 
dential. I fervently pray, but I scarcely dare hope, that recent occurrences at Albany may not 
give rise to new divisions in our Party. The influence of this great State has already suffered 
much in consequence of our dissensions, and I am afraid that it is doomed to experience a further 
diminution from the same cause. On the eve of the Presidential election, it is of the last im- 
portance that the Republicans of this state remain united, that she may assume that station in 
the Union to which she is justly entitled from her superior population and resources. Indeed the 
ascendency of genuine republican principles throughout the Union, will in a great degree de- 
pend on the course that shall be pursued by this state in the approaching election for President. 
True it is, there appears to be no direct or open opposition in this contest to the Republican 
Party, all the candidates professing themselves to be pure republicans ; but if we examine the 
matter coolly, it will be found notwithstanding these appearances, that the stability of the Repub- 
lican Party was never more seriously threatened or endangered than at present. Our old foes 
are still arrayed against us ; the mode of warfare is only changed ; and they now hope to effect 
by insidious wiles and stratagems what they never could achieve by open force. If the Repub- 
lican Party should ever be guilty of such an act of dementation as to support John Q. Adams for 
President, farewell in that event to Republicanism : I expect to see the doctrines of high-toned 
federalism again in operation. Of the different candidates for this exalted office, 1 prefer Mr. 
Crawford. I believe that he possesses distinguished talents, and that he is a gentleman of great 
private and political purity of character. What recommends him not a little with me, and it 
ought with every true republican, is to find that he is so vehemently opposed by the old invete- 
rate federalists, and the newly converted republicans. If, however, the Party shoidd not be 
disposed to support Mr. Crawford, why then take up ^Ir. Clay, or some other person, but let the 
watchword be " any Republican against Mr. Adams." Let me know your sentiments on this 
subject. I hope we don't differ on this cardinal point; and do not fail to avail yourself of every 
opportunity to diffuse coiTect notions on this subject, among our republican brethren of the country. 

JAMES CAMPBELL. 



L. Hoyt' s feelings in favor of a triumph of law over good conscience — To let the People elect their 
Presidents icoidd be republican if good for our side — A bad candidate for the Clerkship — 
Hoyt ready to take office under him. 

[No. ] 27.] Counsellor Lorenzo Hoyt, Albany, to Counsellor Jesse Hoyt, at New York. 
Albany, Dec'r. 24, 1823. — Dear Brother: ***** McDonald's cause is decided 
in his favor, and for which I think he mny thank Chief Justice Savage. Sutherland and Wood- 
worth, together with 11 Senators, wpvp dead asninst him, and Snva<;-e and 10 Senators for him. I 
CONSIDER IT A TRIUMPH OF THE LAW OVElt, EQUITY A \ D GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
I must say I had but very slight //o;>ps before the argument ; but after the cause was argued, 
and the facts so ably and correctly liid open to the Senate, I thought McDonald's prospects 
brightened. Messrs. Van Vechten and Henry, who argued the cause on the other side, were 
sadly disappointed at the result. From the cimtmslnnces of JJr. Butler's being engaged as 
Counsel, my feelings were much enlisted in McDonald's favor, and I felt very much interested. 



194 



VAN BtTREX STUUGGLE TO in-F.P rOVvKE FROM THE FKOTLE. 



■n tV,. r^qult ^ • * * ^ A meeting has been called, and is now, this moment, in full 
in tne resuu, . .. t> -j r,fi-,l PlpptoM It was started by two notonons political rwia 

toi'3 political cast-Pr ^f'^'X"'' ^-/l' ^^J",; g^^ff^rd. >5.c. I trust that Republicans and the 

thePeZlT^ZLieB. The measure itself I must say, as I always have said is a Republican 
ot 6? //elT from lohich it springs will render it unpopular with ^ Republicans. 
■^X.lt-iZ" Lcmn toihe clerkship of the Assembly 1 consider beyond doubt His 
Mr. Ijiv ngstoni^ tfici.i deservedly unpopu ar w th the Republican as well as 

Tf 'T^T Tha" on. s nee forfeited h confidence' of every body. A man devoid of 
Federal party, ^e ^^^a^^^^ to sacrifice his character, and every thing else that a 

every P""f 'P'^^ ^^ J°"°- '^^j^Vrine of Ivarice, I think will not obtain the support of a Repuh. 

to obtaiK a situation under his successor ; but I think L. .. perfectly sate, as ^i,^J^5>^';^J^QYT 

Bn.ne^sAntiJacl<son Report by Bu'ZT-theNeu, ^Members disUked-Gar diner attacks 

piagg — Trouble brewing. 

FNo 1-^S 1 Lorenzo Hoyt, to Jesse Hoyt, New York. „ pt^^paRT 

LINO. i~&.j iRoi q.indav Dear Brother : I send you by this mail the RLPOK 1 

Albanv, ^l-^^^^^l':^f.^i^S^^ RESOLUTIONS. The report is a voluminous, and, 

nhL^'k^o^i^^rlm wilt P?^ came, is an able one, although 1 have not yet had time to 

^^flw^LE^ wrote the report; and I leave it for you to judge of its merits and the cor- 

meet your approbauon. ^ ^ reported without 

=,p.aker d„, „« pay suffice,,. '"'-l^V^Z'^^^^Zi.ZS^^^ „ Z, "mn'ra.buri 

.ible, there is more deep rooted P«'J'-^^'''^'^;;,;^f;"^^^'f;,^,^/e^7, ed ac^ainst the last winter dele- 

,«'! _ :« ia-i« Mr Vin Riirpn rew.Triied Jesse Hovt's |>cculiar nor- 
* Who is Lorenzo Hoyt ? T will tell you. ^^.l!^"- '" [^'^^ ^l^'^^^^ heav" ^"utity, more es,,ec,ally on amount 
vices with the CoUeCorshi,, of the Itevenue «' ^«^^ \"j'';, ^'^ ,"' frc-tl^er! 'Unonz.^- h^. Uolhor in-law Robert 
nf rtwnruvoufs enihe/./.Ie.ncnt. In ^^",'=^ l**''^; ''f " ^';,f ' ^^ ' Oak ev the .!.i<l"e ) nn,l Pnin'l .lones llie e.v 
AlcJi-nsey. the WuU Street Broker ; L. M. Thurston T ' "'"f J; "^"^'^^ t r .« 50 000. the amount of their bon.l. 
;• '.n.ellor?) VVm. M. I'rice corlijied fl'»V''^^r/l "it^for «TJo W Why no^h Lve made it for an an.oun. 
There was a second and n th,rd bond »""'V''.^, ^'',^;'^;;"; ^l;^^^ I'holps of Park Place. N^Y.. 

...uuil to the sum of the BriMsli National 'lfl^V\sV<, Hp, ia min F Butler as V. S. District .attorney, eert.fied ou 
.'ere a.ain the sureties-au.l on the «' > l^.^-^ [ ,. f^ ^ "^ \ B " mm had certifie.l twenty years before to the 

the bond thai the »'ire'ie\w^'« »'"!''>,''''"'*^'Yu nrref Ka k <^^^^^^^^^^^ would ;.av. He knew it. But it d.da't and 

,.eo|,lo of tin. State, that the Wash.uL'ton and V\ are . ' 'i r. ^' ,"^; ,. ,, ,,,,e ' Uc. ; .les.e was f.nu.d t,. have en.- 
lvo.lldn-t-andsowen,aysayofL..ro,.^o lovt ''' l'^J\' J,^ '\^; "V^X ,o seiL^.I«.ne, K. P.ok coul.i find no 
bezzled S^JO.OOO-the jurv gave the, r ^"^ '^™,,'r" J^i ,2^" ,d to this hour in lW(i. not an eir.,rt .s made, or 
diMrict ntlorney that w:-.ild suit hiiii so we 1 as Butle ^sam ■iiQ to '" oakley, Thurston, .Tones, Jesse, or 

meant to be. tJrecover a dollar of the monies «n^,'>"- «' •;; ^^;,, ^ '^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^ New Worhl ! ! ! Thtirstou 

any one ei.e I ! ■I'his i. Van lluren .lemocrarj as I •>' ' '' ^"'''7"^';J,7'\vi,. dbury in Mar. 1839. that he had em- 
(bke M-JIni^y) ,s lloyfs ''^<''''-'" '-^jitwrV ec Woodbur^ receivi, this clerk as Jesse's surety .or 

ployed liim BB n custom-house clerk, iit Siomi sai,ir>. iii » ri. 
.'ii'idio.f'OO on Butlor'irerommenilution ! : 



croswell's artful scheme— the van euren-crawford caucus. 19^ 

tooate, and by which he has incurred the indignation and disgust of every sensible man withii 
his hearing. He accused the Argus of political inconsistency, in first advocating an ahera. 
tion of the electoral law, and then in a few weeks after reprobating the measure as unwise and 
ami-republican. 

Th« speech, if it had bee^i an extempore one, would have appeared nii;ch better than it did, 
but it was perfectly apparent to my own, and the niiud of almost every other pfison who heard 
hun, that it was a written and committed sppRuh, and CONSEQUEN TLY was perjeUly dis- 
gusting. The opinion that I always her. to fore entertained, that Gardinur Wi,s a man of very 
limited talents, is now irrevocably confirmed. 

As to Mr. Whtaton,+ 1 am not sufficiently acquainted with him to judge of his ahilitiei", Wnt 
if I/;an form an opnuon Irom what little 1 have seen, 1 .should say he is noihins above mediocrity; 
but I think I have seen siimcient to warrant the as.«e!iion, that this wmteiVNew York delega- 
li-.n, IS in every ref-pect inferior to the delegation that New York «as tepresented by la=t wai- 
ter. I tnust confess I was not a little astonished, when iseeuho the New York n>embers 
were. I presume they are men of tolerable good sense, with the exception of Crolius ^nd 
one or two others, but as for their abilities they aie, in my opinion, contricted. Let them 
be as they may, 1 think they will wish themselves back to New York agMin, bdore the close of 
the session ; for the Opposition are agoing to experience not a little niortrticaiion this winter I 
can see already tha much trouble is brewing ; and that the Opposition nnist piepnre themselves 
tor the resistance of a hot cannonading. * * * Youts affecticately, LORENZO HOYT. 

Cromocll endorses Noah— Don't abuse Adams until yna have used his friends tohs injury— the 
Wisdom of the Serpent— don't name, Crawford, for ice can pack the Caucus— The Electoral 
Law — IVheaton. 

[N... 129] Edwin Croswell, State Printer, to JesFe Hoyf, New York 

Albany, January 31, 1824.— My Dear Sir: The course which the Advocate has taken since 
the return of Major Noah, as well as during bis abs-^nce. has received the enure appiobaiion of 
our republican friends here. There is one point of policy, however, which it may be well, per- 
haps, to vary. There are several republican friends of Mr. Adams in the legislHtiire, who have 
gone broadly with us so far on eveiy question. It is quite important, THEREFORE, ihat voth- 
ing parncularly harsh respecting Mr. A. [Adams] or his frienda, should be published, AT 
LEAST DURING THE PENDENCY OF THE ELECTORAL BILL, unless a plai.l dis- 
tinction is made between his fmleral friends in your city, and his republican friend.- in the country. 
As an extreme je.dousv prevails among the friends uf all the candidates opposed to Mr. Craw- 
ford, and as the Opposition make every use of even the most innocent sugirestion to warp the 
feelings of our friends, it is also important that his [Mr. Crawford's] name^and e^ecially his 
prospects of obtaining the Caucus nomination, should be kept out of view.X Our points, il they 

t J Rfl'L^'^'''^i^'"'! "'"' V^^" "■' '^]%r^''"t "■ ".'^ .^,?P'^'' ''"''>" '" "-^ As^eniblv. in oppo..ition to Van R.tren and 
rhnt ff^^ ■h^'r ■■?",' *'«>""'" Van Buren's tuUnvvers ,n the unjust and u. jratefni act „f retnovintr Governor 
Clmton from the Canal board an.l ,s now the representative of tlie U. S. at Berlin. In ]8i3 he was editor of the 
^^tlonal Advocate, afterwards Rej^orter to the U. S. Supreme Court, and is by profession a lawyer. 

t In these days, the Argus declared, that "the fact ,s clear, that Mister Jackson has not a sinjrle feeling in com- 
mon with the i;ep„l,l,can party, and makes the merit of desiring the total extinction of it." The\\« " ille B rn- 
rublJcan f ilj wLlrington!''''' '"' '"""""' '*' " '"" ^""^'^ ^^'^"■'■"^'' ^""<="^ f-" ^ •^'"''-''> l-S^ S •'^^ 

Wend you with the Pads to-night- Tis the fide of faction flowin"- 

Sixty.five perchanre they'll muster- 'Tis the noon of treason's reign- 

fhere will he none of mind or nllgh^ /,/„„,/, of Maryland, is "oiii— 

r.Zl 7T-f f,^ '"'i?. '' " I '^""^'- DicKKit.^ON,- and Holmes V Maine : 

General Uuindlrr w,ll ;,e there- Western T/iovms looking -rimU— 

rough as steel and bold as Hector- From \ew York, a h.-illa^d few 

VAN the .mavy DirMor. Spectacles a nd vai.or through: 

Forsyth, with his foreign graces— „r , , , 

Edwards, »'imnm%. in a stew— ^^^"t ''"^ n''"' '''^ ^"'^"^ '"-n'?ht^ 

Plotting: brains and dirtv faces ,^^^ "^'''^ "" ''•^'^^ ^'''" S'^d'y meet you— 

With the blushes reddeninj'throtKrh- ^' r"" "'" " .'^'''^r'^'jte 

Shallow knaves, with forms to mock us. ^^,,^^'^, '^''•' ''/'"S '" greet you— 

Straggling, one by one, to Caucus. ^ ''"'' "'^ <'emon of despair 
,„ . • . , „ , , Reign.s, the tvrnnt of thehour, 

W end you with the Rads to-night. And every dark mtri-iier there 

Tall and short— and weak and witty— Jostles in the race for power 

M.any an eye that hates the light, Laborers, suited for the ioh 

And loves cnn fusion— more 's the pity. Will be there vt riosc'of day • 

W end you with the Rads to nishl- Barber, Floyd, and Foote. and'CoAA- 

Cancus ,n his court presides- J.r.nmnn. reariv for his pav- 

Promises and |.oweriny,te- j8„,h the Barbour.^, men liiistaken ' 

W^A pn/^f ^aml faction guides. Uniytli shall scarcely save his bncon- 

^1 end you with the Rads to-ni^ht- Gallant C^rAvfrom Tennessee- 

A motley crew, and bad the best- S„n,e in -loom am! some in <,|e»_ 

W inging from the South their flight, Siiuliow knaves, with forms to ^efe ,». 

W 1th two po.it stragglers from the West. Strafsling, o.-e by one, t^ vlncZ'' 



196 LIVINGSTON, CROSWELL & V. BDREN TELLING WHAT PARTISANS WILL Dd. 

are eained at all, may be more certainly secured in this way, than by giving even our hone^ con- 
vlctio'is and hopes of the ultimate success of Crawford, it by U we g.ve currency to the contemp- 
iihlP Pint which the enemy promulgnte so liberally against him. 

It IS 3 fficuh to conjecture Nvhat will be the result of the various propositions which are now 
before the Houe on the subject of the [Electoral] Law. A considerable diversity of opinion 
nreva'l as roaZajority or a plurality ; but I have strong hopes that our repubhcan friends will 
SnlL ton the former, and defeat the scheme of Tallmadge & Co., to give the electoral votes for 

^TlS'Xmoon, in committee of the whole, Mr. Waterman [of Broome Co.,] explained the fea- 
ture of Wsbill ^nd the prominent arguments in favor of a majority, in a c ose and conymcng 
Seech The committee rose after having passed the firs, section of Mr Waterman's bill, with 
Sn Amendment poliding for the election of 36 instead of 34 electors by the people. 

PeXost^erev^'s never a more subtle scheme for the prostration of the democraUc party 
Peihaps there vv as ne VVheaton, and it will require the whole vigi- 

'^:iy^Z::^:^o::^^r^^r.en^s, to meet, expose,.and resist the designs oHhe fac- 
tion that is now seeking their ruin. In great haste, yours sincerely, E. CROSWELL. 

[Three letters, E. Livingston to J. Hoyt, N. York.] 
Aaron Clark vs. E. Livin.ston-Yates' Notions-Keep power from the People-Van Buren^s 
Repnhlicans described by Linlngston-Down with Clinton, right or wrong I 

[No 130 1 Albany, Nov. 14, 1823.-Dear Hoyt: * * * * Aaron Clark is a can- 

didate for the clerkship. Marcy, Knower, Porter, &c., will do everything lor me ; but as Clark 
s an ind fits fcllJw, and vviU prove troublesome to me, I feel anxious to give him a signal 
defea * * * * R..maine and Ulshoelfer could be of service to me-wiU you ask their ass.s- 
tance ? * * * Write rae an answer to this letter, and burn the same as soon as may be. b. L. 

iNo 131 1 [Post mark; Albany, Dec. 5,] 1823.-Esleeck put the stories in circula- 

tion L New yirk that^ was under Van Buren's inilue.ce made a speech &c ut you know 
without my telling vou, that he IS an egregious bar. * * * * 1 have seen tne governor 
rYntes sice I last wrote. He is decidedly in favor of Caucus nominations, and confoundedly 
ZzzlTaZtsLg the choice of Electors to the Feople-hni he says that the Republican 
vartv ousht not to be afraid to go to the Feople.X . ^ •< ^ „„;ui„ t 

^ He will recommend the measure, in my opinion. This I wrote you before-but, if possible, I 
-im nriw mirer of it than I was before. , . 

"'Trr;;i>.n members of the House, it is thought will hoU a f"-- "/^ ^'^f "^'^V 
nnd after coming to a conclusion, nil go one way or the other. ^ ^KJ;'}^„J, u^ n^ xTwnT' 
DANrPROUS THEY WILL GO ONE WAY. AND IF IT IS THOUGHT HE CANNOT 

M^SnYDII™ * * *r Yrl 

have some prime stuff. Stilwell will act firmly and as becomes a RErrBL.CAN I presume you 
':2rs!^U\.hatImeanby^f,rmness.' * * * ' ^^ '''^ ^^i'^t^^'^T^':^ 
terv that has a $100,000 Prize in its wheels. Now, ns a favor, I wil take halt ot a ticket vuin 
vou if you will purchase one-but recollect it is the last time, and that if you] should draw a 
blank, I win not venture any more with you. If you consent to this proposition, let me know our 
number, and then I shall have something joyful in anticipation rvTNP ^TON 

Yours, sincerely, t- ijlviiNUSiuii. 

[No 1.3-^ 1 Albany, .Tan. f., 1824.— I rather think the Assembly will pass the Elec- 

toral Lavv-ihe Senate will not pass the law. I am dead against the law, or against anything 

t =5« WLeatcn's plan, Flagg's nmcn.lment, an.l tl.e wl,ole prooccdin?. of a meetin? of the ''f'""""';" "'7^",^- 
}^:::':L^Zl"siJ^k:U^^,:.n'slen.r to J. Hoyt, No. 131, wrUteu three ■„o..,h. prev.ous. 

t W. A. Thompson, in a letter to .1. Hoyt. dated Albany. ICth Feb 1824 says-; T.,o Sn,<,U -vO-V "-J ■•;;;; 

butlooVc^t at last. I shall siay here a week or ten days, unt.l we hear the results ol the Caucus at \\ ashu.gton. 
1, Mr Van Buren confirms this discroditnl.le statement of the unprincipled '•''""'•t""^ '.is own P"/;>^ 'j "'W';'; 

solved 'to condenu. hi. art, in any event; when they ""'> ''-^ ;^..'' ,';""^^,j^,^'f,f eomitv and of nshl are merged 
,,..u.c.. in order to take thur own position nrninst lum ; when all '""^'^f, "''""' "L"^,;, enrnees them as that he 
In an ah-orhing do.,re to expel hi.n IVom olhre and when 7 ''■'-"" ""^'/^'^'i^ e"^ to mean act 

::^-::^-::;^:::::!x^:.::"^o"X^ opponents .LLy say or think or 

liim to give hini a niunicnl's cure or uneasiness " 



THE SANDY HILL JUDGE~A WRONG GUESS BY VAN BUREN. 197 

that will tend (o raise Clintonian or Federal stock. * « * t .uini. .,„ , •., ^ . 



Yours, l:iED. 



Van Buren's Mend, Skinner, interferes M the State Legislature and Judiciary to prevent 
the People from electing their Presidents. ^' ■P'^^"^"' 

[No. 133.] J"dG;e Skinner, U. S. District Court to J Hout isr V t 

January, 1824. Dear Sir: Mr. Latham A BurrovXt nf .1.; « , V^''''''-— ^^^*^Y' ^I'h 
with Mr. R.ker, the Recorder, (at an^r^te he is atrchedio Mr R I. \^""'^"''^'""'^' '"'^^d '^^ 

CordialJy, |R. SKINNER.' ' 

Li^ingstor. to Hoyt-The Clerk's Logic-Mat L. Davis kept out of Mischief-A list for Mr- 
Van Buren— Leake for Clay— The Caucus. "^^'^ ^^"^ 
[No. 134.] Albany, Feb. 16, 1824.— * * * a maioritv nf tl,. t • i 
majoruy of the people. We recognize the people as the souTce ofal Lvver-t his' i "'' '' * 

Tii^izrnthSut:^^,^::^' -' '- ''- -'' '--^ ori;;:;. 'l^t.'^ ^ -p 

the ^e'^nhs.X^^^S'^^t^^Z lZ\i tt Vf °^ ''' "^^ '^^ ^^ 
Crawford has 88, Adams 36, Calhoun 11. aaTejL^^^^^^^^ * * * 

hates Van B^uren-I know it. Le^ak: wilUrt't":; h l^^lnt'oTh 'rut^ f'^'t^.^^ 

ee.e^:::^^:i.u|r^^-^^^ 

t..y feel towards his Lellen^y'lTmVe^^d; I^ o-he „1=^^^^ 'i^^t' j^l 

Caucus will be held to-morrow night, or Thursday.' Marcy advises Thursday. * * ^'^^E^StateJ 

them, could not change his vote or ini'aire ! im tn wWi f ^ fu'V;?^'', "''-^*' ""'' Recorder R.ker, (if he obeved 
diced against CLntonrand Zch'opposed to^^h^et ^1 oTja'ck^^^^^^ '"^'"- ^""""'^ wa,'slr.,n^Iy preju 

acted a disgraceful and unbeco^in',' part in inilrtr^r^r^^Lllf:^^^^^^^ 

,Hi.^^,^;;|:^:fXJ^|i-^^'^,;"J-Bu^ -.ency which .ppo,nted Noah Sheriff of New Yorlc l 
IS a Sandv Hill lawyer. Wri-ht fva, id m^ttP,? „.,? I 'i^''",' ^"^^'" "'"' ^" '^^^ ^''''"l" and student-he also 

HHI some n^onths a'fter Ben ainin F bIX V "n B n ;X na'r 'M^PfT F.""" '" i^^'f^' 1«'9, and left Sandy 
of Directors of Barker's W. & W Bank in wl„r-h i, ..t ,^i '^ v, ' "T"'^'' ,"'"'' "* President, Cashier, and Board 
sold out his law office at Sanlv Hil to fiuUer vL ^ '"' '^ may have been an occasional assistant. Skinner 
the river St Lawrence, in Oct! thai sn^ne 'ear Wri. ^vtit for'Vrf' f^^ ^''"^''^ T'"*^'' "' C""'""' ""» 

Senators who voted to keep from the people the nower of eTpn.in. t,, /'^"'^"'u''"^ "^ the imnwrtal seventeen 

seventeen were defeated by 17 OUO votes nevtl^PcZn L k " the electors of the President of the U. S.-the 
Buren and the eabal-they^uffedV„ru;he'',y,t-and^ m effi,y_but VVnght stuck to Van' 

the real control of the Argus and its opinions lay. "°^'' ^''- ^^ "^ ""' '*"«' ^^'" "l-Iain where 



iQB VAN BTJREN S AIR-BUILT lASTLE A.^u ^'^ 

.hin.. the only one calc^ated - Pjo^^ --^ .. e^ on P^c c.ini^ ^^J^^ttn^ 
ever, the opinion, or rather the f^^^/^f f ^'^; "^J^.^j p,. Jam ihmgs the Majur has sa,d as to 
n.uch pleased and .o accustomed to J^ ^^ f°"Vy"eomplain to me that the Advocate has lost 

regret the deprivation '^f '^^'"-'^"^ ^57^'':^ '!°X^ he is, they think, under son.e sort of obU- 
its spirit. AstheMajorh..depravedthetrappe.m he 3 y^^^^^^,^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ 

gation to feed tliem on such vmnds as have be^°^J ^^ J ,^ ^ay excuse me from 

Lpects to him. and to our h.ends ; tell them that ior "''viou^^^^ ^^^^,^^^ ^^ ^ BUREN. 
not writing as often as I could wish^^^^^^ 

<,. /„ Crawford and the Caucus ; thereby showing no political sagacUy. 
Van Baren prophecies success to Crmojord ana t y -Washington, March 6, 1824.- 

[No. 138.] Martin Van Baren to J'^f/^^^7';j^;,Jheip 41 Messrs. Lvnch and King 
T>L S,r: I have received V--^ ^h-s mom n iAh.tThave at no time doubted of our complete 
may choose to infer trom my l"°'^^>,''"Vj^' Irci^cd here to prevent members from attending 
success.t The great mrtuence ^^^'l^^^ J^^^* „^^;'='„;ile who have partaken largely of -he fa. 
the caucus, and the subserviency and in r.' ^^,^^^ ^^^^^ d.,ubtle<P sometimes mam- 

vor of the p.ny, ^^'^ -.^''^"'^''^''/"".f ^-I' °hU I am but lutle anno>ed. 0„ tlv assumption 
fe.-t, but d. spondeney is a ^^eakness w th -h ch 1 an. ^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ 

that New York will be fi.m and prompuy ^-^l^'lV ' "^.^^ "" ,, ,,e,n in the field after the course of 
substantiaily settlH, Neither Mr. ^^t J^^J;;^: X^^iL oyrni^n rests and the reasons 
New York is pos.si.iv.ly known. J^Jr \^^^ myself be ea-y on the subject, an. so will our 
in Its sunport cannot be g've.n in a letter 1 vsin "'> confidence. Make my be^t respects 

friends here who never were in better spirits or felt ^'-"yS^;^^';^!,^^ M. V. BURRN. 

to our friends, 

„ . „ „ . -rpdH Pnveriv — Office Hunting — 

(Ko. 139., ^-»-;«;^- .f K7£;:i.:.;-?"r„'sr.L. .1. 

n»«r Rrother- Yours of the 4th came duly to 
Albany, March 7. 1824, Sunday evemng.-Dear « ot^ Thompson received from 

hand. The subsiance of it I had -"^f -, ;;„^ j^^;:. y'^to the result of your application to 
you While here, in which you spoke ve,y ^'^^^^^'n^ M ^^^,^^, despaired unul I 

the Corporation, but as .1 had not heard horn you ^mce 1 ^^^^„^ 3„^^,,d „ ,. 

received' your last. It is now I suppose ^-own^^; ^^^^ d%end\ipon for a livelihood than 
ting the olfice you sought. If a pe s n has no h,n ,d„^i„,n.-e, I think he wdl s.,on go 

olhces, which .t .11 ..me. depend "l"'' .'^>;/' '^ ""^ ,W-rf i-"" ^"•^'^'^"' '" ■""' " ^"'' T^ '""* 
,opot. /'A''«»-/'^howev.r,y."rse,-. ce^^M ,^^,„ endeavoring toohtain ; but it ap- 






succeede.l he mnflc 'Y° "\u <„^„ » lookins round to see whom he coinn nexi ■"-'■-; 7, ,„c<,eed, 1« eree|.e<i ly 

tlnough Iheir intercesoiona and eltorts, no crawii. 

ceisor " no to Crnwf>rd wpre nnvtlnngl'Ut 



VAN BURENISM IN THE BITD—PARTY PRINClPLES—SUDAM-^MALtORY. 199 

mention your businees is agaiti increasing a little, which I hope is the case for if it HnB« v,^t 
where the end of 1824 will fi.d us I should not like to undertake to say "'''' 

hJZ r'T"^ ^V- J*^"^'"?^""' I ^i'*"!^' if the river opened soon, that he should be up a<rain 
before the close of the session ; if he will not be up again / shall icrite him nbnJ\nL^"^^ 
mentu,ned, and shall also speak confidentially to ole I two of Z Tr^lldslfZ „^ft !7 
ject;for ANYTHING I CAN DO TO THE PREJUDICE OfTedWaRD lIVINVtr^^^^ 
AND BENEFIT OF MYSELF, I THINK I AM PERFECTLY JUSTIFIAbVp?^!^^ 
ING, PROVIDED ALWAYS THAT HE DOES NOT FIND IT OUT 

I think, and have thought all winter, that it would be best ior me, alter 'the Legislature nd 
joums, or alter 1 get my pay, and e-quare the yards here, to go somewhe e else und locare t'r 
the summer, wuh a view t. carry into effect the special oraer of the dny! o St econLv 
nhi^n ^ iT '"''°'"' "^'^" ^-'ggestion, I will mention Uuca a» a place c^mbminri ,i/the' r^at 
objects I have in view, economy and improvement. Mr. Lynch says I can Je, hllV h ^ 
respectable boarding hou.es at the rate of from 16s. to is" per week whe e!; I f '" 

throughallthe summer 26s. I should regret very much to 1 ave Mr^tt bu, k,i ,w if ii'd^ 
Cjdedly for my mterest to do so, and with your consent and app.oba-iot I fed v'ymch In" 
Chned to do 1 thi. spring. Charles is .oing to leave, and is going somewhere in the WeLm 
SrStleVcT :' :f ' T' '^'; "° P^^-" ^^ ^'^^ "^^ -^ instru'cno,, m n y s tud es ,M s^ 
UD the p/nr 1 h if ° ' ''""^' ^'. " ^T''"^'y '^"S^g^'^ '" his own business. The Snare take 
up the Electoral bill to-morrow, and no doubt will treat xt as the poor thing deserves * * « 



L. HOYT. 



1824 'fh letter-Lorenzo Hoyt. at Albany, to Jesse, at New York-d.ted June 20 

as wetmed': '=°™'"^"^,^^ ;^P?-""! --^g^'-^iy for 'he Mercantile. Charles and me do it ojither.' 
as we ormed a partnership before the commencement ot .he session * * * You sav vou 
are making a push for the offi.-e of attorney to the corporation, and 1 think your claims are 'J 
I hope you may succeed-but I presume it is doubtful, a. you undoubtedly have to'T, tend wkh 

g;^i:^sy:Sit!t£'tir- ^- --' ^-^^--^ '^ - ^^^^i^^^rt^ 

[No. 140.] PHTate. W.L.MarcytoJ.Hoyt. Stop the American. A cure for Adamsim 
10 pay it you will much oblige an old friend The attack uoon Mr VI n 1 k^^ go-dness 

Yours sincerely, W. L. MARCY. 

Senator Sud^rn feels grateful far Mr. HoyVs favorable opinion of his political conduct. ' 
[iSo. 14Ua.J John Sudam, Senate, N. Y to Jesse Hovt 

upon the eve of breaking "^^Ld^aTeTery fSrorbuSSeS' o7 ev"^'"d!sSon '''IITT r''' 
you sent me has passed into a law. You^s cordTally, /SoHN JuLIm"" 

and for other n^easures in coL^^rof L'rnfoimrrp?^^'""' "''''""''' "' ^"^^"'^"' '^"1 V'ce PresidS 

l^t^l'^'^^^^^^^^^^^ ^- Y- -,- ^'-'«'l to the Senate of the 

had had a political quarrel with Van Bnren-a c°a"len.e to fi^l 't . ^1 ^''^" ''". ^.^"'^"^ ""^ ^'^"'""^ federalist- 
. place-and had be.n an ardent supporter of Clinton but whleeVnH^ ''"'''1 "''"il? ''""'• ''"' " '^'"^"'^ "'^^ 
that great sta-esman's most active opponents hTZI one ofH?i 17 ! ^ 'T"''' '"J^"^' '"'« "'^ ^"'"<- '^''^s of 
pie from electing the electors of Pres dent and Vice Pre^fdplM ^"^tors who, ,n 1824, voted to prevent the peo- 
same year he sat as chairman of the mnorUnt com„SwL"h 1 °".^t C'.nton from the canal board-and that 
^rous iniquity practiced on the people Sti^ele^ la ure in n!.'' ^^^''''ii '"'^"T^ T" ""=> «1"'*«'' ^^e mon- 
The question was taken on the passa^-e of the bifl M,rM Z °''"""'"/ "charter for the Chemical Bunk, N. Y. 
again taken-yeas 19-navs IsJcarr^'d Honest Ja^oerw'?''."^''''' I^nays 13-lost. The same question wn 
for a repeal he and Bowman bolted. Sudam ChrkTndRrn, 7 n' " Vi "f u^^" '}^ ^""^ ^"""^ "P "^^ Nov. 
no twice then wheeled round to the veasfweVe thrcommitt^^ of in'"^^^ ''"'^ur[' ^"'^"^ ^'^'^ ^^"'^'"" ^"^'"S voted 
pointed ? Clark. Bowue, Greenly and Ke ei Z,,Zl,Z,?, ,'"'i""'V- Why was not even one o'lponent an- 
for repeal-but Lieut. Gov Torded^edrha Tre^' 1 tS/^;'' "',r';-'^;'^u'\'^^^"• «"'"»"" =^"'' O^dley leK 
Albany, A|.ril, 1835, aged 54 years-^nd Xt\Xact2 n ,.^ ^ Y''"^'''^ ''^ '"'"'^'- *'^- «''<lnm died in 
reprehensible conduct in the spring session of 18^1 ° >n character when be expressed gratitude for Sudan,', 



200 VAN B.,REN AND JESSE-A JOUENEV SOUTH-CABINET SECEETS. 

the s ore on the corner of Broadway and Liberty street. y .^ ^^^^ ^.^^^ 



•n»„ 'i(\ 1R2fi— Dear Sh-: The attack on the Vice President 
[No. 142.] Washington D 30 1826 Dea^bt.,^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ .^^ ^^^^^ .^ ^^ ^^ 

rj. C. Calhoun hns produced very great ^xc 'enetu. x k j j ^^x. Satterlee 

lith seventy. There ts of course not .he jjj^^htest pence fote Ueg^ ^^^^^^ .^ ^. .^^^^^ 
Clark of your city is the " gentleman Jo'" J^-^;^ York. U ^.^ ^^ .^^^ ^^^^ ^^,^^^^^^ . 

round the cltest. My quondam fnend Jolm A ^^^'^ f ^^^^^^ \^J^,, earried advices from 
and when he parted from me. was so f "^'^^,^^f °™ '''l"'J""„ainst me that I wrote confiden- 
here which would induce the ac^mimstra tion to s o come ou a.- " ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^,ns..\..x to 

tially to Campbell by the same mail my ""P'^;;'2';7eft u^ The result has, I think, verified my 
look out for it In the American the mornmg ^^'^'^yi^^^' ?n haste your friend, 
conieciures. Say nothing of this as coming from me. Inhaste, jour , ^^^^-^^ 



rNo 143.] WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, lS27^-My Dear Sir • J^f -f ^^^^ t^otain^rcrf- 
Mr. S^is.a'geitof the editor of the National Telegraph, who v^^^ ^^^,^,-^,y 

bars for that paper. Any assistance you can give him in Pjo^^^^l^^^ j^, V. BUREN. 

remembered by the editor, and oblige ^ , ^^^ 

V K T 1Q97 _AIv Dear Sir : Being entirely free from blN- 

[No. 144.] WAsmNGTON, Feb 3, \i21.-Sly "^^l^" l^^ j ^j,;,,ad remain so, I 

DORSEMENTS miv, and my situatton rendering 'iff'^^P'^P^'Q^^ CASE, HOWEVER, 

v.\. 7 1827— Mv Dear Sir: This will be handed to you 
[No. 145.] Washington, Feb 7, 1«^ '• ""J , Carolina. He wishes to come on 
by Master Hayne, son of my friend Colonel "^y^^ °^,,?°f ^'„,„^^^^^ Do me the favor to see 

to this place under the protection of some person ^'^'^^^f '^"f "^''^''^ '>,ie^^^ Thomas Ludlow is 
that the wishes of his father, in that particular, ^-^^y^^;" sSncIrdy M. V. BUREN. 

coming on. ^ 

« WeUter looks black, and Clay looks blue.' 

[No. 146.] C. C. Ca.nbreleng. ^L C . to^.Tesse H^y^fZ-^.e us. Webster looks 

Washington, 13th l-^. 182<.-Deai Hoyt- We ^je c^^r>i ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^,^_ 

BLACK, and Clay looks BLUE. I h;'ve ub cr bed fm t^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^,^^ 

u ..t «!9 1 vpnr 1 Wish VO'J would get tliat numoii ui ..u t>.„rn iI.p nrirr of 

fo me' l'?s so cheap, yon will have no dimculty in filling up the numbet. From the pncc 
the paper, you will see it is designed for the ^^ovl^^^^ ^^ _^^^ ^ ^ CAMBRELENG. 

intention to have been back by t^ns time l^^y^e ^^'^ ".VeTlm sday inurning, and after stopping 
dered it absolute y impossible. Wo s^ a h ve he^e „ ^^^^ ^^ J^_ ^^^^^. ^^^^^^ j ,, ,„,kea 

a few days at Raleigh, .t .mc- ^ *; ^ ""„ " 'j.^^^ b„t have not vet seen it in either. You 

anxiously u,^«^A.-«rn.."..«-M-'^^^^ 

;:;!LbS;tL;:^«^l? S:S:;tNoah] J.... i...,. .. readers .Un a conc,seand,er. 

,„ .1 ••.„! w TI Oiwf.ml in Georgia, mill Icirning from 

1 I, «as .lurin- this j....rnev, tlmt Van B. an. C"mbreleng vis te 1 W. 1 . a^^ o n„ ^^^. ^^^ .^^^^ ^^^^ 

t««M l,i,n unci Mr. Calho.m. Wlalc "^ "l!^'^, ;\;;i;'':7",;;.' ^-^l-'l-nent ha, assumed a ..ew and far more seduc- 



EITCHIK — ^MY IPHAETON — ^ECONOMY — THE TARTY TRICKED. 201 

spicuous view of that suhject, AND IS NOT APPREHENSIVE THAT HE WOULD IN- 
JURE HIS FRIEND MR. CLINTON,! he might do the same thing. In haste, 

Yours, sincerely, M. V. BUREN. 

Thomas Ritchie's Party Practice — The East Room Letter. 
[No. 147a.] From Niles's Register, Vol. 37— 1829— '30. 

Extract ol a letter, dated January 1st, 1827, and addressed to, and published by, the Editor of 
the Richmond Enquirer. 

" This being the day on which the President's House is thrown open to all visitors, I went, 
among others, to pay my respects to him, [Mr. Adams :] or rather, I should fairly confess, I 
went to see the East Room, for the furnishing of which we had voted twenty five thousand dol- 
lars at the last session of Congress. I was anxious to see how that amount of tumiture could be 
stowed away in a single room, and my curiosity was fully satisfied. ' It was truly A GOR- 
GEOUS SIGHT to behold ; but had too much the look of REGAL MAGNIFICENCE to be per- 
fectly agreeable to my old republican feelings." — Richmond Enquirer, Jany. 4, 1827. 

Remarks. — Mr. Ritchie was instantly charged by other presses with having published a ma- 
licious falsehood, there being no truth in the above. Did he hasten to make amends? So far 
from doing so, it was four months (April 27, 1827,) before he could be induced even to try to 
excuse himself by sayitjg that " The account to which the writer refers was forwarded to us by 
one of the most intelligent and distinguished members of Congress." 

If a member of Congress really made him his dupe, by telling him a wanton and malicious 
lie, to injure another, why did he not expose him to his constituents, and why allow the untruth 
such a long circulation ? Is it thus that the Union is to be used to give the signal to 500 servile 
or uninformed party presses? Is this democracy? In August, 1829, the Editor of the Tele- 
graph attacked Mr. Adams on 'tother side. " It is well known (said he) that thro' Mr. Adams's 
aristocratic priHe this elegant room [the East Room] was left unfurnished,'' &c. What an evil 
it is to have editors in power, and influencing the people, who, like Ritchie, Noah, "Croswell, 
Blair, and their employers, say " all's fair in politics," and act accordingly I 



Exchanging a Carriage — an Apology for one cent of Postage. 
[No. 148.] Letters, Martin Van Buren, at N. York, to Lorenzo Hoyt, at Albany. 
New York, June 2, 1827. — My Dear Sir : Will you do me the favor to get Dennis or some 
one else to clean up my harness and Phaeton, and send them to me by one of the boats, with 
directions to give me the earliest information of its arrival. I want to exchange it here. I can- 
not pay the postage of this [12| cents] but will j-epay it among your other expences. Excuse me 
for troubling you, and write me. Your friend, M. V. BUREN. 

[No. 149.] N. Y., June 6, 1827. — My Dear Sir: I have sent a copy of the enclosed 

to Mr. Wilcoxon, with directions to advertise anew. The Chancellor would not grant the order 
B. sent by Mr. Butler. Consult Mr. B. as to the form of making the amendment, and do it for 
me forthwith. / have no opportunity of paying the postage of this [it was one cent] but you 
will, of course, keep an account of your e.xpences in this matter. 

In haste, your friend, M. V. BUREN. 

t By a reference to Van Buren, Butler, and Croswell's previous letters to Hoyt, about Noali, instructing him in 
the course that would best serve their purposes, and commending his conduct ; and also to Van Buren's letter to 
Hoyt in Nov., 1828, [Nu. 156.J vi-here he says " I sorely regret the loss of Noah's election ;" and by calling to mind 
the fact that Van Buren set aside the claims of Coddington and many other?, in 1829, that, with much difficulty in 
Washington, he might provide for Noah, by the Surveyorship, the candid reader will perhaps arrive at the same 
conclusion as myself, that Hammond is wrong in his opinion — that Van Buren, Alarey, Knower, Croswell & Co. 
acted in good faith towards Mr. Rochester, when they nominsfted him at their Herkimer convention, Oct. 182G, us a 
candidate for Governor, in opposition to Clinton. Clinton was for Jackson — so now was Van Buren ; all his party 
capital was thus invested. Rochester was the warm, personal, and political friend of Clay, and anxious for the 
re-election of Adams — so was Peter B. Porter of Black Rock, who addressed the electors in favor of the Van Bu- 
ren candidate, reminding them, and with very good reason too, that Rochester's election would probably give Ad- 
ams the State of New York, while Clinton's might secure it to Jackson. Noah had tried to make money, eight or 
nine years before, by deserting the bucktails — it would be a good trick in Van Buren to allow him to appear to 
come out, of his oion accord, for Clinton, against his own [the V. B.] party, by which means the chances of defeat 
to the Adams candidate might be greatly increased, while Van Buren and his friends would make capital on both 
sides, and seem to have kept their word. Van Buren writes from South Carolina to Hoyt, in 1827, to get Noah to 
insert his speeches, " if he is not apprehensive it would injure his friend, Mr. Clinton." There's something of the 
sneer in this saving clause — Croswell went for Rochester, who was defeated ; Noah for Clinton and Jackson — many 
of Van Buren's confidential friends, at Albany I'nd elsewhere, were against Rochester — and when the tug came in 
1828, Noah, Van Buren, Croswell, Wright, Flagg, and the anti-Adoms men, were Kin nd pulling steadily one way, 
wtt/i S. Swartwout, for the spoils. Noah's bitterness towards Van Bnren, in 1834 to 1841, was probably in a 
great measure owing to the imjjression he had, that his useful duplicity had not received a suitable reward. There 
is at present, a very good understanding re-established ; and Van Buren and Noah, as they deserve to be, are again 
friends. Clinton, as Governor, had 3650 votes over Rochester; and Pitcher, the hucktail nominee, was returned 
with him as Lieutenant-Governor. " Hnd Rochester (Van Buren's pretended candidate) been elected, there is 
every renson to believe (says Hammond) that the entire vote of the State would have been g-iven to Adams" — and 
Van Buren writes Hoyt, Feb. 8, 1»29, INo. 165.] that VVester'velt, in 1828, had saved their party from defeat by 
preventing Pitcher's nomination at Herkimer— ;Ac very man they pretended to support in 1826. The apathy dis- 
played by some of Van Buren's men, and the oiiposition of others, towards Rochester, having turned the scale ia 
favor of Clinton, the Clintoninns in the legislature rewarded the treachery (if such we may name it) by voting to 
re-elect Van Buren to the U. S. Senate, in Feb. 1827, 



202 VAN BUREN, WRIGHT, VERPLANCK, MANUFACTURES, MASONRY. 

[No. 150.] Tuesday morning, June 12, 1827.— I must leave here on Saturday morn- 

ing, and if my carriage cannot be sent down so that I can have it by Friday morning, it will not 
be worth while to send it. 

[No. 151.] New York, June 13, 1827.— Dear Sir: lam detained here by nothing 

save the carriage ; and, contrary to my letter of yesterday, I wish you would send it down upon 
the receipt of this, if I should have to wait until next Monday to exchange it. 

*^ In haste, Your friend, M. V. BUREN. 



[No. 152.] John Van Buren, [Attorney General, &c.,] to Jesse Hoyt, Albany. 

New Haven, Nov. 28, 1827.— Dear Sir : 1 wish very much to get my rifle here ; and I know 
of 710 other person except you to lohom Jean write about it. I would be very much obliged to you 
if you would have a leather covering made for it, and put it on board of the Constellation or 
Consiitution, in charge "of the Captain ; directed to me, care of Drake & Andrews, Tontine, 
New Haven. The Captain will send it over to either of the New Haven boats, and so I will 
get it. I want it very much, and I don't think I shall be home in the winter or I would not 
trouble you ; it is in my bed room. Whatever the expense is you can get it of Mr. Butler, or if 
you pay it I will pay you when I get home. The bullet-raould is in one of the draws of the 
aide board : if not there, I wish you would look for it. JOHN VAN BUREN. 

The Metaphysics of the Committee of Congress on Manufactures, in 1828. 
[No. 153.] Governor Wright, Washington, to Jesse Hoyt, Albany. 

[Free, S. Wright, Jr. Rep. in Congress.] Washington City, 15 January, 1828. 

My Dear Sir : A n'ote from the Hon. G. C. Verplanck was received by me yesterday, enclos- 
ing a letter from yourself, together with a particular reference to the Committee on Manufac- 
tures, of which I am a member, of a subject very nearly and deeply interesting to the Committee, 
as well as to the farmers and manufacturers of our beloved country ; to wit, the subject of do- 
menfic cons»m]ition. i i • u 

You propose to him to refer it to me " as one o( persons and papers, properly belongmg to the 
Manufacturing Committee." It may do very well as one of die "papers properly belonging to 
the Committee." But it would seem very clearly to me, that it is oi ly the evidence of " one of 
the persons" properly belonging, &c., as you cannot have forgotten that the "^paper" had re- 
ceived " an envious rent," which you say was " from an Adams Woman." Now this Adams 
Wnman would appear to be more nearly one of the persons, as possessing evidently the ability 
of proving t) the committee the facts in relation to this branch of consumption. But whether 
or not this conclusion be strictly correct, anoth< r follows directly from a view of the " paper" 
itself, and which it is passing strange you should have overlooked. The repair of this " envious 
rent," you say, was immediatelv made " by the most delicate fingers that could be possibly en- 
listed in the cause of the General !" This repair is manifest and presents of itself a delicate 
specimen of domestic manufacture, important to the comfort, economy, and independence of this 
republican government. iNow if it had occurred to you, that the object of the Committee is not 
only to procure uxpfal specimens of domestic manufactures, but also the personal attendance be- 
fore the Committee of the individual practical mimufacturers themselves, that they may .^ee and 
learn at the same time, yon certainly would not have omitted to forward the names or name so 
directly rendered material, to enable the Committee faithfully to discharge their important trust. 

We have no news here. I shall at all times be e.xtremely pleased to hear from you by letter. 
In much haste, I am very sincerely your friend, and humble servant, SILAS WRIGHT, Jr. 

Electioneering—Mr. Clay a Mason of rank— Poinsett's Mexican Masonry— Is J. Q. Adams 
a Mason ?—M(irtindale on Slacery—Guliah C. Verplanck. 

[No. 154.] Gulian C Verplanck, M. C, to Jesse Hoyt, Albany. 

Washington, Jan. 22, 1828.— Dear Sir: I have just been told by a distinguished Western 
member that Mr. Clay is a Mason of rank. He has been in Lodges, Chapters, &c., with him. 
Cannot this be so used with Clay's friends in our Western District, or with the people, as to di- 
vert that question from mingling with the Presidential one?* 

♦ (;ulinn C Vfrntiinrk shows no Inck of tiict in whnt is culled eler.tioneeriiig. He wns the whig cnndidate for 
Movor of .\'ew York in )8:i4. nnd cii.ne witl.ii. 180 votes of defentinj C. W. Lawrence, ihoiij-h the previous demo- 



crntic m.Horily had hecn .WOO. lie must he well iidvnnced in vei.rs. for he wns mnrried hy Bishop Mohnrt in 
IWXl Miinv ve:irs nIocc he wns involved in n dispute ahoul Trinity Church which did not increiife his Irierulsmp 
for Governor Clinton. As ' Ahimeleck Coo.lv.' in 1814. he wrote powerful essavs in defence of '"« "^";-, ""V ";■ 
tacked Clinton with Rreiit severiiv— and afterwards joined the hu.klails nsainst hiin. In 182fi, attne Mcrkimer 

enth.n. he noniinnted Van Uuren for (;overnor— supported .lackson for President— and only .loincU the oppo- 
when the hank veto and deposit micsiions came up, and the ere U reiiuhlican piirtv hied otl to fi«"» ntjfl leii 

iiS« and democriitH. He hni l.een in Concress and a Slate Senator— is distinguished in the wn'^^" »'era- 



Conveii 
sitlun 

(\S whi"i arid nemocrriii. iiu una uij^ii m v^. ....;;..,.......«.. «....^ . — ■ - ^. 'T ;■ ' . I 1 : ^O'v-.- .A A.# 

turo— and. with Levi Kcardsley and Samuel Vounir. has proved himself a friend to hu country bv hii ettort* to ex- 
tend the blessings of •ducatlua aud inctauM uwful knowltdge throughout tha land.. 



ELECTIONEERING WITH A VIEW TO THE CONTROL OF THfi SPOILS — CLINTON. 203 

Mr. Poinsett's masonic interference in Mexican affairs, a minister appointed and supported by 
Adams, might also be used.* 

1 have written to Baylies to ascertain if J. Q. A. [John Quincy Adams] is not also of the pro- 
scribed secret association. 

I have not time to add more by this mail. Suggest these matters to those who will use them 
to advantage. 

Martindale has made a singular display, reading a long sermon against slavery, with great 
emphasis and gesticulation. I am yours, G. C. V. 

Regrets Clintoii's death — What could we have done with him ? — He might have opposed Jack- 
son — My friend Lawrence — Help Judge Hoffman. 
[No. 155.] James Campbell, Surrogate, N. Y., to Jesse Hoyt, Albany. 

New York, February 22, 1828. — Dear Sir : I was very much schocked when I heard ol Mr. 
Clinton's death, and I confess to you, that I sincerely regret it. 

Important consequences are likely to follow from this event ; but whether favorable or preju- 
dicial is difficult to determine. It was certainly a very embarrassing question to decide in what, 
way Mr. Clinton was to be disposed of at the ensuing election. He undoubtedly v\oiild have 
been a candidate for Governor, and in this case could the Republican party have been prevailed 
on to support him ? I am of opinion that they could not. Mr. Clinton then, finding himself 
opposed by our party, would he or his friends cordially co-operate in the support of General 
Jackson ? In such a state of things, the probability is they would have opposed Jackson, and 
the intolerance manifested towards them vi-ould have been urijed as an e-xcuse for their conduct. 
By the death of Mr. Clinton this danger is avoided ; but then it may give rise to others not less 
serious and formidable. In the selection of a candidate for Governor, every kind of artifice will 
be resorted to by the Adams party, to distract and to throw us into confusion : and it is only 
by effecting this that they have any chance of succeeding.t 

* Joel Poinsett ofSouth Carolina wns Consul Genernl of the U. S. at Buenos Ayres in 1813. andlinH held official 
station there for years " in ihe same line of business 'says the Baltimore Federal Re|iul)lic!in) ns .lohn Henry fol- 
lowed in the I'. S.. viz : sounding the disfiosition of the people, and holding out enRonragempnt to disnnion." He 
was :if>erwards sent to Mexn o where he tmsied himself in the estnhhshment of Masonic l,od?es. the chiirfers for 
which he obtained from the tf. S. The Mexicans charged him with be'ns :in ar'ful distnrber of their political sys- 
tem ; and in dne time he assumed his proper position as Martin Van Buren's war secretary. Poinsett began his 
education in Connecticut, and finished it in London and Edinburgh. 

t Mr. Clinton, whether in life or death, was evidently n cause of uneasiness to Vnn Bnren and his followers. The 
following letter iVom Silas VVriuht to Martin Van Kuren wms published in the VVorkingmnn's Advocate. Albany, 
Oct. 1830 — and shows what Wright's views were at the time he wrote it. Govenuir Clinton could not have nomi- 
nated Heman .1. Reilfield as circuit judge of the western district, for he was one of the ITsen.nors who had set public 
sentiment at defiance in \!H4. to please Van Buren and elect the intolerant c:'.ndidate Crawford. It is one ofVah 
Buren's rules, that, ns, by adherence to him, his political friends mav sometimes have to act dishonestlv and un- 
justly towards the people, he (V. H.) will stand hv such partv iTisSrnments, if nsePul. and noludd them .ig'in.st the 
people. !l was on this uionarfhical principle of Charlps I and II, that Wright spoke of Redfield So, too, when the 
people's representatives removed Flagg, Van Buren made him a P. M.. and there are hundreds of similar cases. 
Letters Silas IVright to JUartin f^an Buren. H'as/ihigton. 

Albany, April 4th, 1P26. 

My Dear Sik : — The time for our adjournment is now fixed upon, and we shall soon have done what shall at 
all be done to prepare for our fall contest. Much alarm and excitement is prevailing, not only here, but in New 
York and elsewhere, from the course taken by Noah, and by the allegations that ^nne of us with vourself are in- 
clining to join with Mr. Clinton against the .N'ational Arlministrntion These aMejations have been more or less 
made for some time, hut did not become loud ot efiective until the Advocate came out as v<'ii will have seen. 
Many of our strong friends are fearful, and nearly nil of them cannot under any terms be brought to j,,in Mr. Clin- 
ton, or to consent to endeavor to sustain ourselves without running a candidate for O.ivernor agninsi Clinton. If 
he had nominated Redfield as .ludge of the 8th Circuit, and taken nnv ground, the result might have been different, 
but now I think it perfectly fixed. My object, therefore is to inform you truly what 1 think will be done; what 
course 1 have myself consented to ; and what course will, in my 0|)inion. alone «nve us from nn entire division and 
failure at our next election. A caucus will be held by our frien<ls in the Legislature before imr adjournment ; the' 
time and place of holding a State Caucus will be fixed upon, to consist of delegates from the coimties equal to 
their representation in the Assembly, an address recommending the holding of such a caucus issued, and the de- 
clared objects of the caucus stated to be the nomination of a Governor and Lieut, Governor. Thus. I expect we 
shall leave this subject anil this city. You will readily ask what man cnn we offer to such a convention 1 If 
you should ask what men want to be offered. Icould answer yon more easily Tallmndge, Voung, etc. But it is 
much more dillScult Id say what man we ought to oflTer to such caucus, and through them to the electors. Vour 
colleague, (Nathan Sanford] however, is more talked of now by our friends than nnv other man. Tallmadge isthe 
candidate of a very few of the Adams men but thev would prohablv be pleaseil to exchange him for Sanford. 
What mav be the «tate of things next fall it is now impossible to predict, but if the feeling which we leave here 
sbould remai", I think there is little doubt he will he nominated by our friends. We are not unaware of the appear- 
ance ivhich running him will give abroad, nor of the irpleasnnt sitnatinn in which you mav suppose yourself 
placed bv this course. But my reflection and the appearances in the State have indiiced me to believe that no 
other measures will be so likely to give us the power of the State when most we shall want it. I admit if we could 
hold our election without any reference to the question of Governor, it would prohablv be better for us. B'lt it is 
perfectly settled that if we do not get up a candidate against Clinton the .Adams and Clay part of our friends will, 
aJid such a c.iudidate the great body of our political friends thrnuchout the .''tnte would enlist themselves to sup- 
port against Clinton. If then we should favor Clinton, there would be nn efTectunl split in our ranks which coulj 
not be healed. If we should not favor Clinton, our services would be required for the opposite candidate, wh)- 
ever hs miglit be, or we should be equally suspected and opposed. A£ai.n, if we should not favor Clinton, hii friends 



204 PRETENDED PATRIOTS INTENT ON PUBLIC PLUNDER. 

J r .v,» first timp since the receipt of the news of 

My Friend Lawrence called on me ^- Jj .fjVdt el p eirhou^ his paying me a visit .1 

Mr. Clmton's death : altho' P'-^l^^^^y f ^^f/^^^^/, communTcate with Washington. I was not long 

s:"^:^'^^^^^^ ^- ''-''-'' ^''^' '' ' '''''' "°'" ' 

the Lteut. Governor and Senate m favo^of^jurfner^d^^^^^^^^ ^.^ ^^^ ^^^ of Recorder; 

there is good reason to b/'eve that he wooW Ji j ^^^ ,.,^,^ .„,pect of this. If however, 

bnt under the present order of thmgs, W9'^ J^j jj^ff,^^n h^ve a fair chance of being ap- 
the new Court should be e^^abhshed m ght ^;;f J'^^, ^Vrite me a letter on the subject of 
pointed its Chief .Tustice. '^ P\?^'\Z' Z\^ZiT^^^^ show it to him. If he could obtam 
his prospects for this or any °ther stuatmn so 'ha^ ^^ f j. ^^^,(^^,^^^, 
SOME COMFORTABLE PLACE, It ^"^^'^ affi.. d threat ^e ^^^^^^ ^^ nominations I en- 

Let me know when ,t is probable the Li^^^^;;^^;^^"^^^^!, jAMES CAMPBELL, 

closed your last to Van Buren. . ^ 

i ir t nf ihp '^fatp larse Majorities only useful 

Anti.M,sonry-S,r.>ogadoc,o„d l'f"''^'-J'!:gJLick se, up «» . Deco, DuckS.r, re- 

tions. They have been a source of ^^'^ pam and P^ea^u ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ 

contents, and the former «" account of ^^^^^^;7J f^^'/^,^ how extremely painful it is to 

contents were. You would certainly ^"J^^^^^^ ^^' ^'^/have had no tune to eat my meals My 

^ :rourofThe™senses, and/requendy without cause for c.h.^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^, 

Lavin" the efforts ol Anti-masonry ou of vie« , ana oi Everywhere, as far 

yond 'rumour, the election has ^e- a -U ^^,.^1 J-^^ ^^y^ ^^^e^Klming votL and lost in 
L ascertained, we have succeeded in demociaiiccoun ^ ^ tored to death if it is 

Tounties that were formerly federal by -al majonu . J-^of -as ^^^^^^^ , ,, 

lost, which is not certain. Th. "^^ «£ ^f^J'^^''' ^The result, according to my present knowledge 
Old feelings into entire and f'^'^'l^^'^^ces^ slnallv triumphant. The following vote upon 
and belief, has been (under the "■^'^"^^Xcertain If'there are any mistakes in it, m your part 
the electoral Ticket I regard as absolutely ""^";- ^^g^fl-^lk, /^.eertained.-Kings 1 do.- 
of the State, you can. of course, correct it. Quee.^anclbm^^ do._Orange 1 do.-Ulster and 
Sew York3 do.-Westchester and P^^Titl^^^^^e aJrand Schoharie^l do.-Herkimer 1 

-x^-n^s^Lntfi^w:^^^^^ 

Blightest doubt— 17. chances in the other districUs; you must make them out 

ifiiimiiiiiiiSI 

.l.o.iUl we Imve the power next «-'"%; '",g,,j„,, .^..j uJv.sing to the curse I have 1''!'"'^^^ "",, jH-.I "ested de- 
tad. iryou'-''n(»0""=""'^ ''""^^^^^^^^^^^ • ,„ „„v by this letter s..s,.ect that ""V :^»n«^ /'^„, „, * *" * * 



VAN BUREIN S LOOSE MOHALS SI1.AS WRIGHT A REFOKMER . NOAH. 205 

have votes enough to put Jackson's election out of all question, and WHAT IS OVER IS ONLY 
IMPORTANT ON THE SCORE OF BETS.* 

Our Governor and Lieut. Governor's majority will be immense. The only 4 towns in 
Broomet (A CRAZY COUNTY) have given me a unanimous vote, viz. 1000, and the others, 
it is supposed will not reduce that. Everywhere I get the true party vote, and in many places 
Southwick's vote will be large. We shall have nearly 3000 in Ulster and Sullivan, and be- 
tween 1500 and 2000 in Cayuga ; we have carried our Senators in 4 districts, and have a good 
chance to carry them in most of the others. Our majority in the Assembly will be as large 
as is desirable. Contending, as we have done, against Federalism, revived Anti-masonry, and 
Money, I am satisfied with the result. I SORELY REGRET THE LOSS OF NOAH'S ELEC- 
TION, AS WELL AS ON HIS OWN ACCOUNT, AS ON ACCOUNT OF THE COST 
HIS ELECTION HAS BEEN TO THE PARTY ; but one point is gained, viz : he must be 
satisfied that his friends have, with their eyes open, sustained a great struggle, and run much 
hazard on his account. I hope there will yet be some loay found out of doing something for 
him. I shall be down on Tuesday. In the mean time, show this to my friends Bowne, Ver- 
planck, Hamilton, and Cambreleng. Tell Verplanck I have no doubt you was as much fright- 
ened as he says, and am quite certain that you have as much pluck as you claim. Remember 
me to Mrs. Hoyt, and believe me to be, Yours, cordially, M. V. BUREN. 



[No. 157.] John Van Buren to L. Hoyt, at Albany. 

New York, Nov. 13,1828. — Dear Sir : You will confer a favor upon me, by having that 
small trunk in which Pa keeps his valuable papers, i^c, sent up to Mr. Butler's as soon as pos- 
sible. I neglected doing so when I left. As far as returns are received, we have three votes 
certain in Maryland, with a chance of another double district. Our friends here all claim Ohio, 
with perfect confidence. The returns from there are very favorable. JiNO. VAN BUREN. 

[No. 158.] Judge Edmonds to .Tesse Hoyt. 

PIuDsoN, November 26, 1828. — Dear Sir: I am anxious to sec Mr. Van Buren as soon as he 
returns from N-^'W York. Will you be so good as to inform me whether he has yet returned ; 
and if not, drojr me a line as soon as he does return. By so doing, you will oblige, 

Your friend, J. W. EDMONDS. 

[No. 159.] t J. A. Hamilton to Jesse Hoyt, Wall street, N. Y. 

Nov. 28. Private. — Dear Hoyt : Campbell informs me that you hold a part of the money 

collected from the Auctioneers, unappropriated — if so, I wish you not to part with it, inasmuch 

as I advanced ,$200 to Targee to send to Albany, which he promised me should be repaid out 

of the first money he should collect. He nowinforms me that he has not funds to pay me, &c. 

♦President Van Buren does not think a lar?e majority of the people, as indicative of union on men and measures 
of the least consequence. If Jackson is safe, and the chance of the party to clutch the plunder, through him' 
"what is over is only important on the score of bets." Gov. Wright, in his mess.age to the Legislature of New 
York, Jan. 1845, furnishes a very suitable commentary upon this gambling, betting propensity of the Van Buren' 
family, in these words : 

" Another point of much more serious complaint, is the extensive and rapidly increasin<r practice of bettino'upon 
elections, and the interested and selfish, and corrupting tendencies which it exerts upon the'clection itself. "These 
improper and corrupting influences have made themselves manifest to the vvhide body of our freemen, and consti- 
tute a theme of almost universal complaint. Upon the party to the wiiper, they are all control h'u''. His ear and 
his mind, from the moment his monev is staked, are closed against argument, or reason, or examination, either as 
to the questions involved, or the candidates presented fur his sulVrage. He must so vote and so act as to win his 
bet, and the welfare of the country becomes an entirely secondary consideration. His a])peals to all over whom he 
may hope to exert an influence, are to save himself from loss, and help him to win the money of his opponent not 
to examine and inquire how they may best serve their country by their votes." ' ' 

" The suggestion." continues (ioveriior Wright, " most likely 'to arrest the pracli.-e of betting, is to make it pun- 
ishable criminally ; to subject the parties to every bet made u|)on the result of an election, to indictment, and upon 
conviction, to punishment by a fine, to be graduated by the amount of the wager, and to all the costs of'the priise- 
eution. The deleterious influence of Ibis species of gambling upon the public morals alone, would, it appears tome 
justify the passage of a law which should make it criminal. And when its corrupt and corrupting tendencies upoii 
our elections, upon the free and proper exercise of the elective franchise: when its influence to bring the innroper 
expenditure of money into a political canvass, and to apply it under the desperate impulse of a ganiblino- spirit, are 
considered, I cannot doubt that the moral and political asjiect of the evil will fully justify its classification as a 
crime and its punishment as such." 

t If Broome was crazy, Peter Robinson, her representative, was quite discreel. He sat as Speaker of the As- 
sembly in 1829, and never missed a bank division during the session, but uniformly voted against every safety-fund 
charter, in the teeth of Van Buren's advice. 

JI have placed this note as of 1828, but it may be 1832. or anv other vear, after the November campai<'n in 
New York. Was the Auctioneers' money, an electioneering tax levied bv the party in power, from that cla'ss of 
persons, because privWeged ? Hamilton was verv sharp and close about! caili, fees, &c. Were the s''00 4nt to 
Albany by Targee, on account of a contract fund to manufacture public opinion for the ?tate ns the otfici-il 
printing is to Ritchie, and as it was formerly to Ulair and Rives, to enable tiiem to emplnv and direct men of ta'l 
ent at Washington how to manufacture public sentiment, to be forwar<led through the United States and echoed 
by hired, servile, and unprincipled presses, for the benefit of a party bound together bv the iilunder of the neooleaml 
the neglect of useful reforms ? If not — what was if? ' ' ' 



206 VAN BUEEN TRUSTS IN OCT PROVIDENCE ! — HIS FRIEND BUTLER. 

&a:., the end of all which is, that I am not to be repaid in the manner I supposed. Of lh» 200 
I have but 65, so that there is due to me §135, and if you have the whole, or any part of that 
amount, i wish Vou to take care of me, as far as you can. Talk wiih Campbell. 

Yours, &c., J. A. HAMILTON. 



An Active Voter — the unfortunate pitied. 
[No. IGO.J . Gulian C. Verplanck, M. C, to Jesse Hoyt, at New York. 

[Postniiirk, Washington Dec. 27,] 1828. — I enclose a contribution for the Major [Noah.j 
whose notice of Mr. Herht-rt 1 received this morning, and recognize therein a hand which is not 
unknown. The Major's are native wood-notes, but there is a learned melody in 5-8 time, 
which will e.xplain to you. It is not only true that Mr. H. voiedfor the whole Jnckson 

ticket in the 5ih ward, but he did it twice running, and then observed that he was now goin^; over 
to Hoboken, but to-morrow he would vote in the first ward, for all the Jackson candidates 
exo'pt Alderman Cebra, whom be could not swallow. This I will swear to. Please communi- 
nicale it to the National Advocate. 

Who is to be Mayor ? P«ior Adams [meaning the then President of the U. S.] looks so 
woc-begone and sick that every body pities him. He is wholly altered in person and appear- 
auce. Yours, G. C. V. 



[No. 161.] Governor Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt, at New York. Albany, Jan. 4, 180!). 
My Dear Sir: You need not, 1 think, have any apprehension about the message. The earliest 
allowable moment %vill be embr;iced to send you a copy ; but that cannot be as soon as you de- 
sire. 1 thank you kmdly for your letter, and beg ynu to write me always with equal freedom. I 
cannot consent to contribute by any act of mine to the prevalence of that great political vice, a 
desire to shun n-fp msibiliiy. I shrill do the best I can in whatever relntes to my office, and leave 
the result to PROVIDENCE and ihe People. Remember me kitidly to Mrs, H. and believe 
me to be very sincerely your friend, M. V. BUREN. 

Does our friend L. Smith know that Judge Swanton has been recommended by the elite of 
the piirty in New York? I presume it 13 understood by him and all our friends. / do not see 
how I can avoid the appoint men I. 

[No. 162.] G'lvernoi Van B irfen to Jesse Hoyt, at New York. 
Alba.ny, Jan. 15, 1829. Do me the favor to find out the residence of Mr. Forman, and give the 
enclosed to him. You may ascertain it from Mr. Newbold, or Catliii, or Chancellor Kent. 

M. V. BUREN. 



Butler and the Attorney Generalship — the Clinton BUI — Coddington's advice — Westervelt, Ha- 
vens, M'l'dey — Politics found even in Physic. 
[No. 1631 Governor Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt, N. York. 

Alba.vy, Feb. 1, 1829. My Dear Sir: I am distressed by Lorenzo's accounts of your affairs 
in N''w York. Win n will the Republican Party be made sensible of the indispensable neces- 
sity of nominating none but true and tried men, so that when they succeed they gain something? 
The same game th^t is playing with you was in a degree played here on the nomination of At- 
torney Gener.il. The only personal objection that was made to Mr. Butler, icns his conduct 
laxt winter in regard to the Clinton Bill, and I believe that ever; Clintonian in both houses 
voted against him, except Chai!e.« Livinsston, of whnse vnte I am advised. Mr. B. depended 
up.)n your city vote, and would have succeeded if he had got it. Cargill, Arnold, Alburtns, and 
Mr. Allen, vot'jd f )r him — beyond tli:it nothing is known. I must insist upim you not mention- 
ing my name in connection with ihis subject in any Ibrm. Make it a point, if yon please, to see 
jrty good friend CODDINGTON, and say to him that I have not been able to follow his ad- 
vice in relation to the Heulth appointments, and hope to satisfy him when I see him that I have 
done right. The claims of Dr. Westervelt were, takinij all thinijs into the account, decidedly 
the strongest, and niRch was due to the relation in which he stood to Governor Tompkins, 
especially from one who knew so well what the latter has done and sufliered for this State. I 
should fijrever have reproached myself if I could have refused so small a tribute to his memory. 
Westervelt is a gentleman and a man of talent, of a Whig Family, and a Democrat from his 
cradle. He was three years in the Hospital and five years Deputy Health Officer, until he was 
cruelly removed through the instrumentality of Dr. Harrison, who to my knowledge, owed his 
appointment to the unwearied and incessant perseverance of Governor Tompkins. Havens has 
been at the station but a year and has never seen a cnse of yellow fever in hi? lite. All that I 
could do for him (and he has not a better friend in the world,) was to satisfy myself that Dr. 
Westervelt and the Board of Health would retain him in his present st.ition. I cannot dismiss 
Dr. Manloy. His extraordinary capacity is universally admitted ; and hi.s poverty, and mi.sfor- 
tune in regard to the new Medical College which he brougiit into existence but failed to get a 
olace in it, has excited a sympailiy forhira with medical men in' all parts of the State of impre. 



' THE GREAT SALVATION ' OF MABCY THE DOCTOH V. BUREN & CO. 207 

cedented extent. Mr. Clinton was so sensible of it that he once actually nominated him for 
health officer, and was upon the point of doing it again the very %\eek when he died. His re- 
moval if made could only be placed on political ground'!, and as he was a zealous Jackson man at 
the last election thai could not have been done without danger. 

Butler feels less than any of his friends. Yours truly, M. V. BUREN. 

I had promised not to interfere and did not. 



The Time to strike for Coddlngton. 
[No. 164.] C. C. Cambrelcngto J. Hoyt.— WASHix&To.\,7Feb.,1829. Dear H.— I have 
your letter for the Major [Noah,] who has not yet arrived — when he docs he shall have it. 
When the. time comes te strike there is no man for whom I would do more than for our friend 
Mr. C. [Coddington,] none deserves more than he does.t You are mistaken — Ohio is for ifscZ/. 
I expect soon to hear the result of your ballotings. Very truly yours, 

C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

Van Buren's Neutrality— Marcy placed, on the bench to save hint from ruin — A physician saves 
Van Buren's party, and is paid with an office! — Pitcher, how dangerous .' — Dr. M'Neven — 
Jacob Barker. 

[No. 165.] Governor Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt, N. Y. Albany, Feb. 8, 1829 

Dear Sir — It is impossible to judge correctly without a view of the whole ground. Some two 
or three weeks before the meeting of the Legislature, Sudani by letter requested my neutrality, 
I shewed it to Mr. Butier, and, with his approbation, replied, that I would consider it my duty, 
under all circumstances, not to interfere. Brcnson's friends had the address to push Dudley into 
the Senate, and MARCY WAS SO SITUATED THAT I MUST MAKE HIM A JUDGE 
OR RUIN HIM t These circumstances gave color to the clamour about Albany dictation, which 
it became necessary to respect. No one was better satisfied than IVIr. Butler of the impolicy and 
positive impropriety of my interference, as matters stood. My friend Campbell is certainly 
wrong if he blanies me. He was as anxious to have Manley retained as to have Hitchcock ap- 
pointed, and tl unouiit of his advice, therefore, was, that I should give the two most valuable 
offices to two oiu Federalists who never acted with us till last fall, and that to the exclusion of 
n young man who, with all his connexions, have been Republicans in the worst of times — who 
has already been sorely persecuted, and lohose firmness SAVED US AT THE HERKIMER 
CONVENTION — for, had it not been for the fearless and prompt stand taken by Dr. Wes- 
tervelt after the first informal ballot, PITCHER WOULD UNDOUBTEDLY HAVE 
BEEN NOMINATED.^ After all, it is very doubtful whether ha g'^ts through the Senate. 

t A friend in New York, who was well informed on many points, at these times, tells me that Coddington, who had 
been a grocer, liesdes being concerned in speculutions with and for 'he party leaders, had advanced a heavy sum 
in ca-sli, with certain promises, when, &c. 

J If Van Huren saved Marcy from rnin hymakin;: him a Supreme Court Judge, Marty's subservience to his benefac- 
tor appeiirs to have been boundless. On the I.ith of Oct. 18^9. Mr. N. P. Tallmadge addressed a letter to Gov. Marcy 
from Poiighkeepsie, as follows — "!^ir: I have stated on different occasions, thai previovs to the extra session of 
Congress in 1837, you advised me, at my house, to oppose the .'^nb-Trensu'v iSchenie, if J!r. Van Tiiren should 
recommend it; that after the e.xtra session, on board of the siecmboat, yuj , 'ved of mv cnorse in opposing it, 
and condemned Mr. Van Buren's in recommending it. and snid that you would not endorse it in your message to 
the Legislature. .Sui-h opmions \ also understand you freelv expressed to others. I wish yon to say, whether 
you deny the truth of the above statement, or whether, in the article iu the Albany Ar^rus of the 14th inst., you 
have authorised or intended a denial of it • N. P. TALLMAPCE." 

Mr. Tallmadge also wrote to Levi Hnbbell, who had been adjutant-general, by Marcy's appointment, to state 
what he knew He replied from Ithaca, Oct. 19, "Dear Sir * * *' I was in New York at the close of the 
extra session in 1837, and know that Gov. Miircy was there, and returned soon after. A few davs after his return 
to Alhany, he told me, at his house, that he had returned in the boat with you ; and he then expressed much gra- 
tification at the course pursued by yourself and the Conservatives in Congress. He at the same time, strongly and 
openly condemned the Sub-Treasury Scheme recommended by Mr. Van Buren, and expressed his dissatisfaction 
at the course f the Washington Globe and the leading Loco Focos in this State During the e.xtra session and 
after it. 1 had several conversations with Gov. Marc}', in all of which he expressed the same views. His opinions 
were freely made known to any of his pcditicnl friends who were near him. I was not then a state otScer, but I 
know that a difference of opinion existed between the state officers in reference to the Sub-Treasury Scheme, and 
Guv. Marcy declared Iu me. that on the recption of the special message he had, in presence of several of the state offi- 
ca s, openly cxpresned his disapprubation of the President's recommendation. * * * LEVI HUB BELL." 

Govr. Marcy made no reply; of course he admitted thai Jlr. rallmadge had truly described his lancnage and 
conduct Yet Marcy came out strong iu his next annual message the other way, and the Argus abused Tallmad"c 
for conduct which had privately received Marcy's high approval. What is it tliat such a character as this will hes- 
itate to do, to secure power and influence under Polk ! 

^ Mark well Van Buren's language. Tie tells his creature, Hovt, that Westervelt's "firmness S.WED CS" bv 
preventing the nomination of Pitcher as lieot. governor. I'itchei'was a bucktail. had been a member of Congress, 
and, as Butler elsewhere writes, was a T\sid]y honest man. It was his high character, great kindness of dispos'?tion! 
and personal popularity that had achieved success in 1826, and given to the partv the executive patronage of 
182b, no man accused ii.rn of political sin ; his measures while acting as governor, had pleased all classes ; "and 
his apiiointments (says Hammond) had been such as would have done honor to anv executive." Even thec'onven 
lion in 1828, which obeyed Van Buren's nod to set this able, well-tried, and patr'ioiic statesman and farmer aside 
and to name Lawyer Throop, because he was an anti-mason, and readv, (like John Van Buren since,) •■ to do anv 
body's dirty work,'" unanimcusly voted biin (ritcher.i the thaa.ks of the dstaocracv of the ;tate, Pj<- tb" i"tsgr'v 



203 V. BUREN KEFORM— GULL THE MANY ; THE SPOILS TO THE FEW. 

Mr.Schcnck is co-opera.ing with the oppositioa ^^ ^^^.f^^l^l^^^.^^^^^^^ 
Tompluns, to get him rejected. About one-th.rd of the Seaate ?;^; ^^'f^'^'J^d, ,P h.m, and 
i, that he wHl fail. If so, I shall not nominate Havens. ^ ^^^^ ,'^f;" ^"^,3 part) in his present 
have done all that was necessary to secure him (with good conduct °" J^'^ JJ'^^^^^^^^ 
place, and I can never lend myself to promote the views of those ^^o coalesce ^^lth our enem 
i sacrifice Republicans, who stay at home, and trust to ^l/f ''•./^^"fj/J^^ '/SnTa ml T«« 
places. 1 sholld not have given Maatey the office or'S'mlly ^^cuuU ^^f^-f^^'^^ ,.^. 

frrtSm.::^n'L£:n^:^t:;7-i^ 
SaJ^n^rTS:/u^::;;^o?x;rwS^"7;^ 

The general remedy is an alteration of the time of your charter « .<"cUo"s. guREN. 

^ Believe me to be, very sincerely your triend, m. v. cun-m^. 

Barker yesterday presented his formal complaint against the Recorder. He behaved with 
great propriety ; you must say nothing of my views in regard to Havens. 

Postmaster Coddington electioneering for the office Noah got. 
rxr„ Kjm Jonathan I. Coddington to J. Hoyt. ' 

M^ v.l FM, nth 1800 _Dear Hoyt: 1 have seen Al. Coe, he has signed m your favor, 

The result will ^J ^^ 'n '^e en^^ , ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ .^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ 

t'Sess on h^w i ge soS^^ there. His claims are certainly far .renter than Sherman s 
IndThave nm the least doubt he would have succeeded but for this impression. You may rest 
^Lnred 1 shall leave nothinc^ undone that can be done fairly and honorably to promote your in- 

iona r^^^^^^^^ ^oU me, and recommending me as a suitable person to Jill ''- «^" fj^";- 

sonally acqnauiui w , ^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ without delay, as 

r™ /;r?onmu/e ^ R InfcSt T°L: Smith (the Ca.Lun man,) is a candidate-don't 
at Un or'his fnends know that I am an applicant u.uU after we get all ^he -^-^ ^J "^"^ '' 
anytMng of interest occurs I will w^it e you again. Yours tr uly, J. I. CODDlNblUN 

Sunday Morning at St. Tammany— New York Politics. 

thaftl're s no doubt of our friend Governor Van Buren's being Secre ary of S ate I Im. 
ava I 1 myself to wn.e thus much in thiio to send you through my -'^ ''--^^'^^^^'^^^^^ 
who leaves here this morning, for Albany, Very respectfully, ^c. J. I. COUUiiNUi 

„„a a..„.tv he ...a ,..p..yc.l as .,e.,t. governor .ui when they h^ne,.Uvcd O^^^ ^^-^^ ..^s^r^l 
tH.uo in oilice the n.an who had thus given umversul »'V,'='^''^ "• '^"-V "'"^^ '^^^^^ „, ^ convenient instrun.ent for 
U ,t not evident ih.t Throop wns secret y selected 'V^^"" •^"'^,'^,,'^t iVcou tv nntos of greedy pol.licians his 
regulating future state ^'-^'''''rr y"""*''' ^^ r' o l.ce W t^r 'a o ",',"0" ,f the Van Bnren, llutU'r, Hoyt, 
creatures, ,0 that no one would he >MM-»' «' " f ^/ " ■' the rearhcry and ingratitude thus n.nn.fested by 
Wrigiil and Blephcn Allen cahall ( ol. 1 ilcher "f ^ "'''-;;' Vf^,,,.,."^ -j-he Morgan excitement was fanned 



JACKSON TIMES — THE 6ENEKAL SCRAMBLE FOR PLUNDER. 209 

An Old Hunker of Tammany, electioneering for a fat Office. 
[No. 168] Jonathan I. Coddington, to Jesse Hoyt, at Albany. 

New York, Feb. 20th, 1829. — Dear Sir : I am in receipt of your favors of the IGth and 18th, 
and am pleased to learn that Mr. T. L. Smith is not an applicant — but really I don't understand 
the impropriety of getting the support of our Republican Friends in the Legislature, whether 
from Town or Country. It is not a new thing. I have known it to be done both in this State, 
and" also in other States, by persons applying for offices under the General Government. I re- 
member signing /or the friends of several of the Country Members the winter I was at Albany, 
but if I recollect right I told you my object in getting the Country Members was not so 
much with the view of strengthening me as it was to prevent others from getting them. I 
shall be perfectly satisfied with any course you and my other friends may think proper to adopt. 
Before the receipt of your last letter I saw Al. C. of the 1st on Change yesterday. He asserted 
boldly that he would support you for District Attorney. He cannot nor dare not back out. I 
called to-day at Coe's to know if any more had signed, but he had not the paper, and informed 
me that the Recorder had it — and I intend to see it to-morrow, (would to-day, but for the vio- 
lent snow storm — at least 12 inches has fallen since morning,) and endeavor to get the 9 to 
sign, and I think there is no doubt of getting that number. I observe you wish it kept a secret, 
that our friend the Governor is going to Washington. Why even our opponents know it here. 
As I have got Allen and Bogardus, would it not be well enough to get our other 
two Senators from this district? — This I leave entirely to you to do or not to do. Muir (Gen- 
eral) tells me that Arnold told him that he had got the Chancellor on, but as you say nothing 
about, tho't perhaps he was mistaken. If he has not signed should like you to get him. 
1 have one more favor to ask you — let me know the day that Mr. Van Buren will probably leave 
Albany for Washington. Your friend, J. I. CODDINGTON. 

[No. 169.] In a long letter of Feb. 23d, 1829, J. I. Coddington says he has had a con- 
fidential letter from Washington, announcing who the members of the Jackson Cabinet were, 
bids Hoyt take the list to Gov. V. B. — then winds up — " I have to renew my request in mine 
of Saturday, which is, that you'll assertain as near as you can what time Mr. Van Buren will 
leave Albany." 

" P. S. I open this to say that my Washington letter says that the general opinion was that 
General Jackson meant to take [care] of his friends. J. I. C." 

James A. Hamilton declares himself a good and true Spoilsman. 
[No. 170.] James A. Hamilton, Acting Sec. of State, to Jesse Hoyt, at New York. 
Department of State, [Washington,] March 10, 1829. Dear Sir : I have with pleasure re- 
ceived your letter. As to Mr. Duer, I will say to you, as I said to his brother-in-law Mr. Bun- 
ner — " While I am not called upon to make an effort to displace Duer, his conduct on an oc. 
casion of great feeling and delicacy, (the controversy with Mr. King about the 'Hamilton Pa- 
pers,') was not such as to occasion regret to me if he should loose his office, or to induce me to 
turn a finger to retain him." / agree with you entirely in the propriety of making changes 
FOR THE REASON YOU SUGGEST. 

With very great regard, your friend and servant, JAMES A. HAMILTON. 



An Application for Office — very briefly answered. 

[No. 171.] Mr. Sec. Ingham to Jesse Hoyt. — Washington, 11 March, '29. — Dear Sir: I 
have received yours. The District Attorneys have usually been recommended by the Secretary 
of the Treasury — but often the applications have been made directly to the President. As to 
the several particulars noticed in your favor, I can only say that it becomes us to speak rather 
in action than by words, lest the latter may be misunderstood — the former cannot be. E.xcuse 
short letters — necessity compels me to be very brief. Yours sincerely, S. D. INGHAM. 

Shall /" get anything in the general scramble for plunder V — " Push like a Devil" — out with 

the Adams men .' 
[No. 172.] Samuel Swartwout's advice to his successor, J. Hoyt. 

Washington, 14 March, 1829. My Dear Jessika : Your very beautiful and intire interest, 
mg letter of the 8ih was received in due course of law. I hold to your doctrine fully that 

NO D D RASCAL WHO MADE USE OF HIS OFFICE OR ITS PROFITS for the 

purpose of keeping Mr. Adams in, and Gen. Jackson out of jmwer, is entitled to the least lenity 
or mercy, save that of hanging. So we think both alike on that head. 

WHETHER OR NOT, I SHALL GET ANY THING IN THE GENERAL SCRAM- 
BLE FOR PLUNDER, remains to be proven ; but I rather gvess I shall. What it will be is 
not yet so certain ; perhaps Keeper of the Bergen light house. I rather think Massa Pomp 
stands a smart chance of going somewhere, perhaps to the place you have named, or to the De- 
vil. 



510 SPAVINED AND RING-BONED— A QUEER TRIO— W. A. DUER. 

Your man, if you want a place, is Col. Hamilton. He being now the second officer in the 
Government of the Union, and in all probability, our next President. Make your suit to him, 
then, and you will get what you want. I know Mr. Ingham slightly, and would recommend 
you 'to PUSH LIKE A DEVIL, if you expect any thing from that quarter. I can do you no 
good in any quarter of the world, having mighty little influence beyond Hoboken. The great 
goers are the new men ; the old troopers being all spavined and ringboned from previous 
hard travel. I've got the bots, the fet-lock, hip.joint, gravel, halt and founders ; and I assure 
you if I can only keep my own \eggs, I shall do well ; but I'm darned if I can carry any weight 
with me. When I left home, I thought my nag sound and strong, but the beast is rather bro- 
ken down here. I'll tell you more about it when I see you in New York. 

In seriousness, my dear sir, your support must come from Mr. Van Beuren and Mr. Col. Ham- 
ilton ; I could not help you any more than your clerk ; if I had the ability, rest assured I would do 
it without prompting. Tell Robert Sands that I am offended with him ; he promised to write 
to me and Mr. H. on business, and he has not done it. My best respects to him. I shall be 
home in two or three days. Till when, do all you can to improve your fortunes, and believe 
sincerely Yours, SAM. SWARTWOUT. 

[No. 173.] Senator Dudley to J. Hoyt. 

Washington City, March 14, 1829. My Dear Sir : I have been favored with your esteemed 
letter, dated the 9th inst. In reply to your question, I will state, that from no other person ex- 
cepting yourself have I received any communication touching the office of District Attorney. 
Mr. Sanford tells me he has also received a letter from you, and that the office in question, the 
bestowment of it, is with the Department of State ; Mr. Van Buren will, of course, have much 
to say in it, and to whom you observe that you have written. There will not he any removals 
from office before the Senate adjourns, at least from offices in your city, as I am informed. It 
was expected that we should adjourn this day sine die; but we meet again on Monday, when 
there will, I have no doubt, be an absolute adjournment. The appointments are all announced 
in the papers — the few nominations left to act on are of a military nature — Brevets, &c. With 
great respect, I am, dear Sir, your faithful and obed't serv't, CHAS. E. DUDLEY. 

Butler thinks Hoyt may turn Van Buren against office-seekers he cannot depend on. We bawl- 
ed for Jackson when we meant the Spoils ! 
[No. 174.] Lorenzo Hoyt to his brother Jesse. Albany, March 17,1829. My Dear 
Brother : I have received your letters of late — those on the subject of District Attorney among 
the rest, and I have seen and read the one to Mrs. Butler. It seems to me to have been labor 
lost, for at the last conversation I had with her about the VVashington expedition, she seemed as 
firm in her opposition as ever. What they will ultimately conclude about it, I don't know ; they 
will probably come to no determination at present. I also saw your letter to Mr. Butler. His 
opinions and feelings had undergone a great change about the District Attorney matter since 
he saw you. I met him in at Mr. V. Buren's Saturday afternoon, and the conversation be- 
tween us three, who were alone, accidently turned upon that subject ; and Mr. Butler then ob- 
served, that he beaan to think quite differently about it ; and he nnw says, what I could not but 
think he would say, that he can do nothing for Duer. He thinks y^ur last letter places the 
Bubjeci on a strong ground ; and that sueh arguments, addressed to Mr. Van Buren, would be 
very apt to kindle a proper feelins of resentment AG\1NST A SET OF MEN WHO HAVE 
NOT I r IN THEM TO BE HONEST AND TRUE TO HIM. Mr. Van Buren observed. 
on the occasion that I have mentioned, that he had a letter from you that morning, and that you 
had set about the mniter wnh a very determined spirit. I further understood him to say, that 
he should not interfere, especially to save Duer. Before much hnd bteii said on the subject we 
were interrnptt-d liy persons coming in. I am a good deiil surprised that Mr. Van Buren can 
be neutral in this, and thnt he will not lend the utmost weight of his influence to displace from 
ojfice such nien as John Duer. lie ought to be satisfied by this time, tliat ih^it class of men can 
never be his real or pretended friends, any further th:in is necessary 'o promote their own inter- 
est ; but strange as it may seem, I do belieoe that his fear of the effect of such a measure, is 
the only m-ttive that would prew.nt his conferring on W. A. Duer, any office within his dispoS'iL* 
You will probibly see hini when in New York, and you ought then to present your views to 
him in the plainest manner. If we have been struggling for the success of Jackson and the ac. 

♦William A. Duer, recently President of Columbia Cullege, N. Y., Is a grandson of Lord Stirling, one of the 
most eminent <jf the American •,'enernls during the war of the revolution. Hisfilher. Colonel VVilliam Duer, mar- 
ried IjikIv Ciitlieriiie, Lord ri's iluu^'liier, and was a membi'r of the (/ongress of IT78, and a signer of the first feder- 
al consliiuUun. VVdIiaii) marr ed the Hon. VV. Denniug's youngest daughter, at Beverley in Dutchess county, in 
Sept. 18.10; was a federalist, and one of tlie leaders in the great nnli-war nieeiing in that rounlv, l>ct. 7. ISli, at 
which I'hilo llugglcs, William Hard, William A. Duer. and Thomas .1. Oakley were eleclcd as delegates " from the 
frienda of I'ca'-e' to a general anti war convention, and Madison's administration rensured fni rashness and precipi- 
tuncw. Towards the close of the contest, however, he roused the people to take part in the struggle — ,ind in 18-23, 
we nnd him nominated liy the .Mliany Kegoncy, Ihroii^'h Van Huron's influence and exertions, as n hucktail judge 
for the ;trd circuit and acce|)ted by un ultra democratic legislature, in opposition to Ambrose L. .lordan of Hudson, 
who had always been an active member of the republican party, and was a firm siippnrter of the war. Mr. Vao 
£iue<i,M iluyt justly ttut€s, wautcU to eluvuto mea who would be true to tuiu. John I>uer, to whom the Hoyts had *o 



THE HUNGRY OFFICE HITNTER — THE POLITICAL WOLF. 21 1 

qui^tion of political power, for the benefit of our opponents, I wish to know it, so that I mm 
know how to act hereajter. From the manner in which the President has exercised his power 
thus tar, 1 am inclined to think that he will go " the whole Ho<»." 

Mr. Van Buren left this morning about 1 1 o'clock. Mr. Butler went with him as far as Kin- 
derkook or Hudson. Wnte me. Yours affectionately, L H 

[No. 175.] M. Van Buren to J. Hoyt. [Post mark, Albany.]— March 17 1829 —Mv 
J3ear toir : I will be in New York on Friday, and wish you to take lodgings for me at the Citv 
ilotel. Yours, ° M V B 

It would seem that no Regency Governor could visit New York, until Jesse had prepared the i 
way. On May 9th he had another epistle from another Governor—" Dear Sir, I shalU^ke the J 
Bteam boat next Tuesday morning, and reach New York in the evening. You will confer an- I 
other favor upon me, if you will mention it to Mr. Jennings, that he may provide rooms for me. I 

E. T. THROOP." * I 

Jesse pushes ' like a devil '—Hires, for Van Buren, a cross grained valet— To the Victors ' belone I 
the Spoiis—^ We the people '— ' the blood of the martyrs '—the P. 3I.'s Bet-put out John 
JJuer—bold measures— Rudolph Banner is faithless to us ! { 

[No 176.] Jesse Hoyt to Martin Van Buren, Sec. of State, Washington ' 

Saturday, 11 o'clock, A. M., March 21, 1829. Dear Sir : I am under the necessity of leav- 
ing this evening so as to be in Albany Monday morning at the opening of the Court of Chancery 
and 1 presume I shall not be able to see you. The man whom I had spoken to as your valet 
has called every day this week to see when you was to be in town, but 1 have not seen him 
to-day, but I have left word at my office if he calls to send him to the City Hotel. His name is 
hryan Farrell. He has good recommendations from Mr. W. B. Astor. He has lived with 
Mr. Prime, from whom I have learned more particularly his character. He is very capable 
sober, honest— his only fault is his bad temper, for which Mr. Prime discharged him— but a 
man who would not suit Mr. Prime in this particular, would never have occasion to exhibit 
that tailing to you, but of this you are to judge. As a general rule it is an objection to a 
servant. He is married, but would leave his family here. This is all I have to say on domestic 
concerns, and what else I have to say is not upon subjects of less importance, but which you may 
(and as the world goes, perhaps justly,; consider as partaking a little of selfishness— but as Mr 
Kichie said the other day in a letter to Mr. Noah, " Mr. Van Beuren must tell the truth to Gene' 
ral Jackson.' So I ought to tell the truth to you, and I will do so, at the hazard of fotfeitin<r 
your confidence and good opinion ; for, if I have it now I am under serious apprehensions tha° 
1 cannot retain it long without abandoning all political honesty, consistencv, and " straight for 
wardness." I take it for granted that all who do not support the present administration you will 
not consider your friends ; and of course will lose your confidence. I have said from the com-' 
mencement of the contest that I would not support any administration who would support men 
in power that had contributed to overthrow the democratic party in this State. I have preached 
this doctrine too long, and it has taken too a footing here, to be easily got rid of 

J his IS not only the doctrine in theory, but we require it to be reduced to practice by the servants 
ot the people to whom we have temporarily delegated the trust. I speak now the universal sen- 
timentsof the democracy of this city, and you may rely upon it no man can be sustained who 
aids and abets in the disappointment of the just expectations of the people on this subject— and 
all personal considerations and private friendships must yield to political justice The leading 
politicians of this city (Mr. Targee and Mr. Bowne excepted) require the removal of Mr Jona 
ni -i^T^"" ' '^"'^ ^^^' ^'""^^ ^'" P"' in jeopardy his own situation by attempting to sus- 
tain Mr. 1 hompson. Mr. Peter Stagg and the appraiser every body seems to take it for granted 
will he removed. We h:.ve in this State fought off the infamous charges again.M General J-.ck 
son and yourself and gave the lie to the authors and publishers of them. To continue th..se in 
power who .-ontributed to sustaining those charges would bm admit the truth of them, and throw 
back a rebuke upon us for cntradicting them. This rebuke is unjust and we will not receive it 
with impunity from an adminisiratiun which WE THE PEOPLE have created Nor can 
we sancii..n the doctrine of the administration, or any of its members, buying up its enemies at 
the expense of its friends. " The bl.od of the martyrs is .he seed of the church." and (hat blood 
which we nobly shed in 1P24 in defending our principles and our party, is still curdled by the 
recollectwn of OUR SUFFERINGS in that memorable fight, and we will no, now permit it to 
be handed over to the mercy or magnanimity of those who were the cause of its being shed, but we 

strong an aversion, is W. A's brother— cnme round to the biicktnils after the wnr— helped Vnn Rnr»n t„ : ■ 

rZle d,rrth,f^''M''nt n^"'''-^''"'''^''VV' "^l' ^'"^^ ''''' ^'""''' '" ->""" V-Hnren'had more 00,^^; 
n.itie died thiit f„ I. Mnd Oner was .•i?!irn .defeated, bv C. Borland. Dner w:'s in the *l.rte ronventi.in If^ „„!i' 



2 12 THE parasite's reward— first minister of justice. 

for various reasons — it is the case oi ivir. yuci. i±<= ft- o„„f„„l nnrl Mr Dud ev. 

„o, a candidal., »»^ ' '""S"""' "".J, Tlod M, Bow„e that I would ttot tak, the office of 
who could insist upon Mr. D. s removal. 1 "'» "'j removed, r.nd now repeal that 

Di.tricl Attorney lor this city if I could get it, till ,Vlr. uoir was lei , p 

1 wdl hold no office from any political parly thai will keep *''-.°''" ;'»''" ""'„„"; „,f„l 

that it 13 not just to import => •^:>"J;°^ ^^^ you" ^^''it two years ago to Oswego-besides many 

Heart u,Uk "•^•. ^J y-^j;^-^ ^ted, H wo" J loTnt to a r'c -appointment of Mr. Duer. 1 have 
other objections that could Deraisea . .^^^^ ^.^ interfere 

exertions to get hnn o-l^ «! » "=^ «; ^^^^.^r, I will not as he and his friends have done, violate 
and their principles. , I" ^° "^/'^'^'^j ;ri^;^t;eonfidence, but the means I shall resort to will be 
the sanctny of private ^"^"^^ /P^^^J/^^'^^^ J„,y, ,„d upon the same principles that ha. actuated 
free from cnccalmen, but shall '0°?"^^"°"' f^',. .u.ilfore if driven to go to Washington to 
:„e m opposing him ^^-f'^e late contest^ I shall t^^^^^^^^^ ^^^.^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^,. ,^ 

prefer my <^^^-^'^";l^^ f'^C:^:^^^^::^ men in power are not prone to look upon 
as much ^''"^^.d;:^»";/,^J,;,7X I h^ written this in the hurry of departure, and subject 
office seeke.s in so f;^;«^^^'*^ *^^ '^^^^^^^ \ have not time to read it over and prune it ot any doubt- 
to the mterruptmns ot ^^^^^ J"^* i .J.^fore send it, subject to any explanations that may be 
ful expreaMons. if "^ "^^ t'l^^^^^^^ So 1 al I ha e taken a general or special view of the sub. 
proper to <=""-/ '7, ^",^7^^'^'; J ,,," majo ity of your political friends in the city, nil of whom 
ir;l tTitoVe -1 c ic 1 o.nt n vou; political fate. The theory of youraddre.^s.o .he Commmee 
S h Lgislaturewe all ad^ under it, if conformable to the theory, ^s,^Uhat 

01 iiic L-cgimai j^ ^^^^^ [vxsie, Very truly, your friend, J. nui i. 



we require. 



PATRIOTS FOR HlREj ©UR UNION's LASTING SHAME, 213 

Mr, Stilwetl would like Office — is injured by the N. Y. Law Monopoly — has an itching for poll' 
tics — he gets to be U. S. Marshal. 
[No. 177.] Silas M. Stilwell to Samuel Swartwout, Hoboken, N. J. 

New York, March 24, 182i}. — [Private.] — Dear Sir: After leaving you, on yesterday, an 
idea popped into my head that I would Like a situation in the post office of this city, for one or 
two years, or untilZ I can completely concentrate my property here. I am now using every 
means to turn my western and southern property into money, for the purpose of purchasing real 
estate in New York. — and making this (my native) city my permanent residence. While my 
bujsness is going on, I can as well be employed in some buwness, that will make me some re- 
turn. My legal profession is of no use to me here, inasmuch as my licence was granted by the 
courts ofVirginia.f I feel still an itching desire to write on political subjects, and take an active 
part in political afiairs, but I shall restrain my inclination untilZ a more convenient period shall 
arrive. You are no doubt, surprised at the request I make, but I believe you will eventually 
see that I have taken a proper course. You will be appointed (beyond all doubt) to the office, 
and I should be gratified if you are pleased with my application. Please drop a line in the post- 
office, .saying where and when I shall have the pleasure of seeing you. Be pleased to Except of 
the assurance of my high consideration and respect. S. M. STILWELL. 

General Prosper M. Wetmore's President refers to his friend Van Buren, 
[No. 178.] General P. W. Spicer, ex-President, U. S. Lombard, to Samuel Swartwout. 
New York, March 24th, 1829. — Sir: I have been informed that the office of Collector of 
this Port has been tendered for your acceptance. Should this information be authentic, and 
should you conclude to accept the appointment, I take the liberty of ofiering my services for your 
acceptance in the situation of deputy. 1 feel a conviction that my mercantile experience would 
enable me to discharge the duties of the office to your satisfaction, and witli advantage to the 
public interests. If you are not already committed on the subject of your appointment, I can, 
with confidence, refer to the members of the Republican party at large in our city and State 
for the claims I may be concidered to possess to your favorable concideration. / om AUTHOR- 
IZED to refer to the Hon. M. Van Buren and the Hon. C. C. Cambreletig for MY POLITI- 
CAL STANDING. I likewise feel justified in adding the names of Benjamin Bailey and 
the Hon. C. P. White, who have assured me of their disposition to advance my views. May I 
ask to be favored with an interview when you convenience will permit, in relation to tliis busi- 
ness. I have the honor to be, &c. P. W. SPICER. 



A Tammany Office-Hunter in the dumps — the Postmaster of New York ready to rebel against 
Andrew Jackson, and tvhy — Hector Craig — Noah on Clay and Van Buren. 
[No. 179.] Jonathan I. Coddington to Jesse Hoyt. — Confidential. 

New York, March 29th, 1829. — My Dear Sir : I have received your favor of the 25th. My 
interview with Mr. Van Buren was not quite as satisfactory as I could wish, or indeed had a 
right to expect, after hearing what Silas Wright, Jr., said to Arnold. I will explain further 
when I see you. It may all end very well, but I am prepared to hear of Noah, or Hector 
Craig] receiving the appointment. You no doubt have heard ere this that Major Swartwout, 
of Hoboken, is to be Collector of New York.i^ He told me so himself. The (General had pro- 
mised it to him, provided he could make certain arrangements, which he says he very soon ac- 
complished, and sent on — and expects his Commission on Teusday morning. But notwithstand- 
ing all he says, Alley, Fish, and others dont believe it, or rather, wont believe it. Frank Ogden, 
it is said, will go to Liverpool. You leell recollect that Camhreleng expects this appointinent. 
Thus (if true) are TWO OF THE VERY BEST OFFICES in the gift of the Government 

t Silas M. Stilwell's letters to Hoyt and Swartwout, copied into this correspondence, arerenlly curious produc- 
tions. He is from New York, went early in life to Virginia, studied law there, hecame a Van Bnren member of the 
N. Y. Legislature, but voted m favor of the U. S Bank. In 1834. he was on the whis side, and nominated by that 
party Cwith Seward) as lieutennnt-governnr. lie has been an Alderman of New Ynrk, and a bankrupt. In 1841 he 
professed a stron": attachment to President Tyler, who gave him the lucrative post of United States Marshal in New 
York, now held by Eli Moore. Heers's Bank, or the North American Trust Co., was planned by him, and a few 
others of his way of thinking; he is charged with l)orrowini beautit'ul passages from Brougham, &c., and passing 
them off for native manuf ictures ; and is probably a self educated man. He started a boot and shoe store in 
New York; and in 1834, was, ( believe, legislator, alderman, lawyer, shoemaker, and speculator. 

J Hector Craig succeeded Noah as surveyor of the port of New York in 18 !3. He was secretary to Tammany 
(Martling's) in 1808. When a member of Congress, and friendly to De Witt Clinton, in 18-2.5, he voted for .lack- 
son and asainst Adams as President. His father wns from Scotland, and a paper maker at Newbur^h, N. Y., 
Mr. C. had been a merchant in New York, and in 1837 was an anli sub-treasury conservative. Eh Moore suc- 
ceeded Craig as Surveyor. W. F. Havemeyer, mayor of N. Y. married Craig's daughter. He (Craig) is dead. 

^Tho' enraged at Swartwout's success, Coddington was his personal and political friend, and wrote him. May 
6, 1829. Dear Sir — Mr. Isaac Warren is tlie Olil Democratic RrpiiMican in whiise favor I spoke to you sometime 
since. He has been trying (io get an appointment t'rom Mr. Thompson, the last seven years — and hope he may now 
succeed. Mr. White and Mr. McUermitt have also requested me to speak to you in their favor for a sitiation. 
J have also to request that so able and efficient an officer as .Mr. A'al/ianirl Huvt may not be removerJ. 

Yours most respectfully, J. 1. CODD[NGTO\. 



214 WOI)D. — AN OFFICE OR A MUTINY ! — RITCHIE— OFFICE ; FIE FOR SHAMB ? 

GIVEN TO PERSONAL FRIENDS, and without even consulting his Cabinet. There is 
considerable dissatisfaction liere that Mr. Van Buren waa not at Wai-hiiigtun sooner. Messrs. 
Bailey, Alley, Bloodgood and fish, and others, called on Governor Van Buren on Monday, and 
expressed to liim what they deemed the wishes uf the party — that Thompson, Duer, ii;c. ought 
to be removed. The Governor told them that he had received a long letter from you respecting 
removals — but particularly about ihe District Attorney. It is said C. D. Golden is a candidate 
ioT Duer's place. If so, there ii» another persona/ friend of the General's in your way. 

O- IF THE PRESIDENT PEllSUES THIS COURSE THE PARTY IS RUINED, 
O' AND THE SOONER WE BEGIN TO BUILD UP A NEW THE BETTER. 

Let me hear from you again soon, and believe nie to be yours, truly, 

J. I. CODDINGTON. 

Re.mares, I3V W. L. M. — The impression on my mind, from the mercenary character of 
Noah, and the intriguing, politician-buying ways of Van Buren, and what I see in this corres- 
pondence, is, that Van Buren had bargained for Noah's support, payable by some fat office in 
Jackson's gift, if the attempt to gel the Sheriffship for hmi failed. In Van Buren's letter to 
Hoyt, No. 156, he " sorely regrets" Noah's failure ; and when Coddington saw him, [as above,] 
he found that Noah was ahead of him, and was so chagrined that he was ready to revolt. Noah, 
In his Star of Aug. 5, 1834, says that he pleaded in 1829, to .Tackson.at Washington, " the con- 
dition of the [Noah's] Enquirer, almost broken down, and $25,000 in debt, from a fierce politi- 
cal contlict " — that Ritchie opposed him — that he wrote Ritchie, tvho replied, [see his letters, 
Nos. ITJa, and 1796,] — and that when he [Noah] took sides with Webb, against Van Buren, 
Ritchie called him " the Swiss Mercenary," &c, Noah, again says, in his Star of June 23, that 
Van Buren got uj) a candidate against him (Coddington 7) and pu&hed him with all his force ; 
but, he adds, " I was still Van Buren's friend." He praised Clay to the skies ; but had previ- 
ously, when ordered by " that tyrannical and iBercenary oligarchy known by the name of the Al- 
bany Regency," described him as '■ the man who had bargained away the presid* ncy," " the 
apostate politician,'' " the despicable demagogue," '■' who, by a base bargain, brought into the 
presidential chair the head of the old aristocracy, the reviler of Jefferson'' — adding [Enquirer, 
May 17, 1828,] " We shall not find fault with Mr. Clay in turning religious, and renouncing 
cards, dice, and women — it is time for him to do so,'" &c.t 



[No. 179, a.] Thomas Ritchie, now Editor of the Union, to Mordecai M. Noah, Editor 
of the Enquirer, N. Y. — Richmond, March 25, 1829. — Dear Sir: I take blame to myself for 
not meeting, more directly, a suggestion which you made in the letter you were so kind as to 
address me a few days ago. But since replying to it, I see so much to draw my attention to 
the subject ; so much in what has been done in the case of others, and so much in what has 
been rumored in your own case, that I oannot reconcile it to the regard I have for you, or 
the respect I wish to preserve for myself, to pass it over in the general and delicate way I have 
done. 

I will not content myself by saying, as I then did, that I wish for nothing from the Adminis- 
tration, hut I will take the liberty of going farther, and, in the most respectful manner, ot ask- 
ing whether you, (at the head of such a press as the N. Y. Enquirer,) sliould accept of an of- 
fice at their hands? The dignity of the press is already i.v.iuk!;d. I greatly fear, by the 

NTTMBER OF EDITORS WHO HAVE OBTAL^EP OFFICES — THE TWO GrEENS, DaNFOKTH, KeNDALL, IIiLL, 
AND IF YOU ARE ADDED TO THE LIST, IT :WAY BE TRULY SAID THAT THE MOST ACTIVE AND ABLEST 

EOITORS IN THE ELECTio.N OK Ge.v. J. HAVE OBTAINED OFFICES. A mind like yours will see at 

t fn Noiili's Pt;ir. June 23. 1834. he thus explains his connection with Van Biiren : 

" I wne so unfortunate as (o i-ommit Mr. Van Buren in favor of VVm. H. Crawford for the presidency, and to 
h«W liini fust in his pledL'e of fiuelilv. so lar nt least as to vote for hiui on the first ballot. afUr which it was hit 
intention to have voted for .IoIhj Uuincy .Adams ; to secure his election, and to accept in return sM-h contingent re- 
ward ns servicLs and infiuPiice of lii it nature have rendered unavoidalile : — for he it known that at that time, and 
nt no time, waB Mr. Van fJnrMi friendly to Gen. Jackson, or had any conli<lence in his fitne'is or claim* to the office 
of president. The coluoms of the \r2nsuill hear me out in this assertion. Mr.Chiv. however, was too (|uick and 
too »a?ncions for the I^ittle Magician, and .Mr. Adams was elected hv Congress on the first hallot. Mr. Van Bu- 
ren's re election for Senator was most desinhle to him, and he saw nt once that he couli) only succeed hy obtain- 
Inir the votes of the friends of Mr. .\dains in our legislature ; so he profensnl to he salistied with his administration 
and took no hostile attitude until, hv the votes of the Adams men. he succeeded in securing his seat in the?enate. 
Il^then attemnted to obtain office under .Mr. ,\dnms. and several efl'irts were made to secure his confidence. Find- 
in" that Mr. ^'an Huren was atlein|iting to sell the democratic party to .Mr. Adams, I forthwith ran up the Jack- 
si n flaj.' under the head of the Vew York Rnquirer, and hv this act incurred the severe ilisidensure of Mr. Van Bu- 
ren and ih^ Regencv. for iircsiimiog to cicclnre in favor of Mister Jacksim. ns they cal'ed him, liefore thev h:id ex- 
hausted their efforts to win over Preiident Adams, or had time to open negotiations with (."en. Jackson's friends. 
-Mr. Adams, however, was deteruiiued to trv his I'ortiine without Van nuren, and he declined purchasing hiiu ; and 
when Mr Rufus King was afipninteJ minister to England, and Gen. Jackson's prospects strengthened. Mr. Van Hu- 
rm threw himself into the current, and came out for Ihe General after tlubattk had lieem fou-srl't- ind in siirAt of 
vicUiry. giving as his reasons, to a New Vork politician, who I can name, it ■ cessury, that Genera! Jackeon, of aU 
ihti cmuikutiw, WHJ Uie caaictt w manage." * 



WE LOVE THE PEOPLE— DEASLY LOVE TO PLTJNBEa 'eM ! 215 

once the handle which will be made of these accumulated appointments, and with what force 
they will be made to bear against those who confer, and those who accept, offices. IT IS CALCU. 
LATED TO BRING DOWN THE LOFTY INDEPENDENCE OF THE PRESS, WHICH, 
LIKE THE SENSITIVE PLANT, SHRINKS FROM THE TOUCH OF EXECUTIVE 
POWER. 

I entreat you to excuse these hasty lines. If I respected you less — if I cared less for you, 
and less for the great cause in which we have fought together, and in which we may have tu 
contend again, I would not venture to write them. The appninlment of personal friends and edi- 
torial partizans has alreadij produced a feeling in some uf our friends that I never expected 
to witness. In great haste, yours, THOS. RITCHIE. 

[No. 179, b.] The same to the same. — Richmond, April II, 1829. — My Dear Sir * * * 
I could sincerely wish you not to accept of any appointmeiu under the Administration. WHAT 
THE PEOPLE OR THE LEGISLATURE MIGHT GIVE YOU, WE WOULD NOT 
QUARREL ABOUT. Had the good people of N. York thought proper to re-elect you their 
Sheriff, or the legislature to invest you vviih one of their appointments, I should be happy to greet 
your success. But, I confess, that afier the favors which have almost been showered upon our 
brethren, 1 should wish you neither to ask nor accept an office. 

There is great force in your remark, that if the editor be kept poor, the press is in great danger 
ofbeing<ifpe«<fen«.'YttlAM AFRAID WE SHALL SCARCELY MEND THE MATTER 
BY MAKING THE EDITOR OWE HIS FORTUNES TO THE EXECUTIVE POWER. 
SHALL WE NOT MERELY SHIFT THE DANGER, FROM A DEPENDENCE ON A 
PARTY, OR THE PEOPLE, TO A DEPENDENCE ON THE ADMINISTRATION ? 

I think, in this respect, we are, and should fee a proscribed class — that is to say, wc should 
be iihut out from the ordinary executive offices ; but I would equally proscribe a member of 
Congress — leaving both of them, however, at liberty to accept the highest grades of offices, for 
which the field of selection ought to be as wide as the nation itself: such as Secretaries of De- 
partments, Judges of the Supreme Court, and Foreign Ministers to the highest Courts. But I 
won't at the same time, throw open every other honor in the Republic to gentlemen of our 
cloth. What I would ask is, that, for ordinary offices, there should be as little connixion as 
possible between the press and the Executive. I would put editors and members of Congress 
under the same rule and exceptions ; because the liberty of the p/ress, and the freedom of elec- 
tion, are the great safeguards of our liberties; and if the Piesident can injure both, by calling 
editors and representatives into office, we shall place both of them at his fcct.f 

I will net however, trouble you further upon this subject : nor do I wish to trouble the public. 
It has excited great clamor among the enemies of the Administration here, and great censure 
among its best friends: and I really wish that not more than one (if one) case had occurred. 
Take office, However, or not, be assured of my kind wishes for your health and happiness. 

Respectfully yours, THOMAS RITCHIE. 

tOur readers will be pleased to turn to Daniel Jackson's letter, [No. 2^2 of this correspondence,] in which it is 
shewn that Van Buren's friends set up Blair as ajirinter, (which was tlie same as If a bank hud lent him cash to 
buy his presses and types.)— they may then be much edified by a perusal of Blair's dying speech, wlieii Polk had 
killed his Globf. and chosen Ritchie, who had such a horror at office, as his successor. 

[From the Clobe.] VVashingtox, April 14, 1845.— The CfloLc otl'ice and its appurtenances, (in virtue of the_ 
aTeement which we annex for the information fits subscribers.) passed, on Saturday last, into the hands of 
Messrs Ritchie &, Heiss. THE GLOBE HAD ITS ORIGIN IN THE WILL OF GEN. .TACKSON, and owes to 
him and Mr. Van Biiren, and their political friends, the success which has attended it through Jirteen years of con- 
flict, closed by the late triumph of the democracy, which effaced the d.saster of 1840. It has been the misfortune 
of the Globe, in sustaining the simiig administration of Gen. .lacksou — the unconi|)romising administration of Mr. 
Van Hureii and in op|)osing the abuses of Mr. Tyler's administration, to make enemies of some who united with 
the democracy in its l.vst stni-jgle. The Interest of the cause reo.uires that all who contributed to the election of 
the present Chief Magistrate should continue to give their sU])porl. It is the good fortune of the cnndtictor of the 
Dew oflicial organ, [Thomas Ritchie] not to have oft'eiided any iiortion of those whose adhesion to the party is ne- 
cessary to its safety and success. VVe have unbounded confidence in ti.e ability, integrity, and patriotism of the 
man who is now to preside over the establishment, and shiill consider ourselves amply compensated for the sacrifice 
we are now called on to make, if our anticipations of the continued union and success of the deiixicracy shall be 
realized by the official journal, under its new name and new auspices. We cannot express our gratitude to the de- 
mocracy, to which we owe every thing. F. P. BLAIR, JOHNC. RIVhS. 

Next day, the Globe remarks, that " Fortun.itely there is nothing of moment at this time to call into requisition 
the energy of the organ of democracy at Washington." When, or in what instance, during 15 years, did Blair and 
his o-rgnn display much enersv, except when battling for the spoils, or fighting in tiie cause of faction, regardless 
of manly freedom, or free institutions 1 Ritchie, Blair's successor, was quite auimuled when abusing me for she\v- 
ing the people, on the best of evidence, the hollow-hearted rottenness of Van Buren, Cambrelong, Butler, and their 
plundering associates. 

Presid;nl Tyler's tkeoni was like Ritchie's; he instructed Mr. Ilohhie, Sept. 28, 1841, that "the apiiomtment to, 
and cnntinuaiice in the office of postmaster of any one editing a political newspaper, is, in the highest degree, ob- 
iectionable. It involves most of the consequences aitfoe stated— introduces politics into the post office — diiuinishe* 
the revenues and confers privileges on one editor which all cannot enjoy. In a word, it is my fi.xed purpose, as far 
as in me lies, to separate the Post Office Department from politics, and brin? cbt-ut tliat reform which the countrv 
has so loudly deruanded." Mr. Tyler, like Mr. KitcLije, did not act up to these principles, but m coufrudictioD o! 
tbem. 



216 'my dirty work's well done — UNCLE SAM SHALL FOOT YOUR BILL.' 

Noahinlroduces to Swartwout for an Assistant Cashier, his Hebrew Cuusin, Phillips, who was 
afterwards prosecuted Jor taking !$(iOU,OOU, or «o, /rowi Uncle Sam's Till. 
[No. 180.] M. M. Noah to Major Swartwout, Hoboken. — New York, March 31, 

1829. — My Dear Sir: I mentioned to you that Mr. Joshua and Aaron N. Pliiliips have been 
many years in the Customs. THEY ARE AT IMPORTANT DESKS, and THEIR CAPA- 
CITY and thorough knowledge of the business is excelled by none in the department. In in- 
troducing them to your friendly notice I can only assure you that their experience and attention 
to their duties, will be useful to you and serviceable to ihe revenue, and that THEY MERIT 
BY THEIR INTEGRITY YOUR ENTIRE CONFIDENCE. 

Truly yours, M. M. NOAH. 



Van Buren complains of his friend Hoijt's harshness and rudeness — 'be civil or I'll cut the 

connexion' — take office and ask no questions — 3Ir. Hills — Van Buren and Jackson understood 

each other. 

[No. 181.] Secretary Van Buren to .Tesse Hoyt, New York. (Private.) 

WASiiiN(iTO>f, April 13, 18:39. — Dear Sir: I never expected to see the day when I should be 
con.strained, as I now am, to address you in the language of complaint. Nothing but my strong 
conviction of the extent and sincerity of your friendship could sustain me in resisting the belief 
that you have a settled purpose to quarrel with me. Here I am engaged in the most intricate 
and important affairs, which are new to me, and upon the successful conduct of which my repu- 
tation as well as the interests of the country depend, and which keep me occupied from early in 
the morning, until late at night, and can you think it kind or just to harrass me under such cir- 
cumstances with letters, which no man of common sensibility can read without pain ? Your 
letter to me at New York contained many truths, for which I was thankful, and reflections 
which I thought just, 6uZ the lohole were expressed in terms so harsh, not to siiy rude, as to 
distress nie exceedingly. I have scarcely recovered from the effect of so great an error in judge- 
ment, to say nothing else, when I am favored with another epistle from you, still transcending 
its predecessor in its 7nost objectionable features. I must be plain with you. I have all my 
life (at least since I have known you,) cherished the kindest solicitude for your welfare, and 
have manifested at least my good will towards you, and should be extremely sorry to have occa- 
sion to change those feelings, but it is due to us both that I should say, that the terms upon 
which you hare seen ft to place our intercourse are as inadmissahle. It grieves me exceedingly, 
more than you imagine, to be obliged to say so. When I was favored with your epistle in New 
York, I had just returned from an interview with Mr. Bowne, in which I had made your im- 
mediate appointment as District Attorney, a point that could be no longer delayed. I havesince 
had an increased desire to see it done, have taken steps to effect it, and with the mail that 
brings your accusatory letter, I have information that it shall be done ; but that you are hesitating 
whether you will accept it or not. Let me advise you without giving my reason ichy, to do so. 

The story you tell [the word illegible,] as coming from .Mr. Hills (a man who, if I know him, 
is without the slightest consideration in society) about the President's great confidence in Mr. 
Berrien, and little in me, is tiie veriest stuff that could be conceived. The repetition of such 
idle gossip constrains me to say, what I am almost ashamed to do, that I have found the Presi- 
dent affectionate, confiJeniial, and kind to the last degree ; and that I am entirely satisfied that 
there is no degree of good feeling or confidence which ho does not entertain for me. He has, 
however, his own wishes and favorite views upon points which it is not my province to attempt 
controul. Upon every matter he wishes to have the truth and respects it ; and will in the end 
Batisfy all of the purity of his views and intentions. I have not time to add another word. 

Your friend and humble servant in extreme haste, M. V. BUREN. 

Office Beggars rebuked — Hints to Hoyt about embezzling other people's cash. 
[No. 18:2.] Secretary Ingham to .Tessc Hoyt, at New York. 

Washington, 14th April, 1829. — Dear Sir : Your favor is duly received, but you must per- 
mit me to say in great soberness, that an excitement without reason cannot be founded in sober 
judgment, and ought never lobe made the cause of action on the part of an administration, who 
are bound to consult, in great soberness, the great interests of the country, and not the feverish 
feeling even of the best of friends, for which no reason can be given. If there were an enemy 
menacing your good city with desolation, that would be a good reason for excitement, or //' it 
was known that your Collector n-as embezzling the public money, or corrupting the Connnuiiity 
by official abuses, there would he good excuse; but really for so many wise men as we claim 
among our friends in New York to suffer themselves to be put into hysteric spasms because of 
the continuance of Mr. Thompson to rolled the duties a few days or weeks longer, or shorter, 
18 really matter of surprise — and if it indicates anything for consideration here, it is, that it 
■would be better to let the {'"ever evaporate, before we throw in any more stimulants. I am sure 
that sedatives are better adapted to such a condition tiian any other prescription — but to be more 
seriouB, my dear sir, let me tell you that there is a vast mass of selfish interest at work abroad. 



* YOtr MADE ME WHAT I AM,' SAID VAn's POOR, SPAVINED TROOPER. 217 

to excite jealousies among us here, and produce distraction, by which some may ride into office 
on one hobby, some on another, while we are endeavoring to stand unmoved by those ruffling 
passions, and by harmonious action, to keep the ship steady on her course — and I should hope 
there was soberness enough among you to resist the impotence of expectants, until their vain 
hopes shall yield to reason and common sense. There is, moreover, you must know an im- 
mense mass of severe and constant labor to be performed by the officers of the government, and 
much more severe to those who come newly into office. These dudes cannot be postponed, and 
I do assure you that / am compelled daily to file away long lists of recommendations, S{c., with- 
out reading them, although I work 18 hoars of the 24, iiiith all my diligence. The appoint- 
ments can be postponed — other matters cannot — and it was one of the prominent errors of the 
late administration, that they suffered many important public interests to be neglected, while 
they were cruizing about to secure or buy up partizans. This ?«e must not do, and hence it is 
. only at intervals, " few and far between," that we can find a moment's time to consider appoint, 
ments. Then let us come to New York. Our friends there have settled down on about two of 
the appointments, but you are wholly unsettled as to the CoUectorship ; and I believe as to D. A., 
and yet such impatience I Why, sir, let me tell you, that one of our best, and I had almost said, 
ablest friends in Baltimore, left here on the 6th March, leaving his imprecation behind him, be- 
cause he was not appointed to an office, not then vacant, and because we had not removed all 
the Administration Inspectors, not one of whom could have been known here, and of whom they 
have not yet accurately informed me. He has since come to his senses — the inspectors are 
chiefly removed, and matters are getting right there. Boston, too, has been in a fever, where our 
friends were so strong, that tHey have divided into two parties. Providence, too, has had a fer- 
ment, where we had 72 votes, all told. There has also been the same at Little Egg Harbour, 
where we had five votes ! These matters proceed from the morbid parts of our system — but 
nothing can sink deep which is not founded in something rational and substantial. Are you not 
wearied with my long letter? I am. It is the most lengthy epistle I have written, since I was 
dubbed secretary — and despair of getting time to write such another, for this year at least. 

Yours, truly, S. D. INGHAM. 



Iloyt tells Van Buren horn he had served him — Is annoyed at having his ' literary property ' sneer- 
ed at as rudeness — is Van Buren' s pupil — very disinterested — no sycophant or intriguer — the 
Vice Chancellor's office part of the spoils — Why Butler and Hoyt were obnoxious — Hoyt 
puffs himself — down with Duer. 

[No. 183.]. Jesse Hoyt to Secretary Van Buren, at Washington. New York, April 24, 
1829. Dear Sir : I received your letter of the 13, on Monday morning last at Albany, and 
sufficient time has elapsed I think to enable me to answer it without indulging in those feelings 
its perusal naturally gave rise to. I have not now and at no time have I had any " settled pur. 
pose to quarrel with you," for I have too often quarreled for you, to be at this time willing to 
quarrel with you. It would be extremely huwiliating to be ob\eedgeA to admit, that in all my 
intercourse with you I had not sufficient sagacity to understand your character ; and it would 
be no less mortifying to have cause to unsay all I have said for the last 12 years, calculated to 
advance your reputation as a man, and your INTEGRITY as a politician. When I first came 
to this city to live, your democratic adherents were not numerous — and without any vanity I 
may say that my exertions tended to increase the number — and until I have been found guilty 
of some overt act in derogation of my former conduct, I question with great respect your right to 
make the insinuation your letter seems to convey. 

As lam not favored with a bill of particulars of my " indiscretions," " error of judgment," &c. 
^c, I am deprived of the power of explanation, but if the plain truth, spoken in a plain way, 
renders " an intercourse inadmissable," then am I content to be cut off from the world and the 
iriends I have hitherto been ardently attached to. 

Every idea I conveyed in the letter you received from me lohile here were conveyed more in 
reference to your interest than my own, and the language in which they were clothed I suppos- 
ed would have been sufficiently softened by the reservation I made at the close of the letter — at 
least to such an extent as would have protected me from the charge " of rudeness," which always 
detracts from the gentlemanly deportment I am most anxious to preserve. The political senti- 
ment of that letter I still adhere to. My political sentiments I inherited from a " long line of 
ancestors'' (such as they were,) MY POLITICAL EDUCATION I AM MAINLY INDEBT- 
i^D TO YOU FOR, and the principles I imbibed from birth as well as education cannot be 
eradicated at this time of life. I HAVE NOT MADE POLITICS A MATTER OF DOL- 
LARS AND CENTS, NOR HAVE I ADHERED TO PARTY WITH THE HOPE OF 
GAIN, but I have labored in them under your immediate auspices for 12 years with the leading 
motive to serve yoit, but against the advice of many powerful business friends. During this 
time you have met with occasional reverses, and I believe my fidelity and faithfulness, and even 
.'^nme degree of efficiency to you, were never questioned by any or\e — nor am I aware of having 
evinced any disposition to shrink from the consequences of adveisity which attended you. If 



218 THE SOW AND PIGS StTGTION FROM WITHOUT ! 

perchance I should now fail lo pour out heartless adulation less copiously than sycophants and 
intregers who have the good tbnune to surround your person at this lime, if mny be a just ground 
"for letting me down the. wind a prry to fortune." I have no ambition to be in the train of 
great men, if I am to sacrifice my independence or to be prohibited in expressing an honest 
opinion. I frankly admit 1 wrote the letter referred to under some excitement. I was assured 
by Mr. Duer's friends that you had promised to sustain him. My conversation with you at Al- 
bany led me to the same conclusion. I had that morning received information from Albany 
that you had spoken to Governor Throop, at the request and in behalf of Judge Duer, for Vice- 
Chancellor. If this was not enough to justify plain dealing from one who had given some proofs 
of devotion to you, and who felt the grtat interest you had at stake, I am at a loss to know 
what would have been. / know the sevse of your partizans in relation to these men, and I 
know a more indiscreet measure you could not have adopted, if you desired to retain your pow- 
er and influence with the party to which you have acknowledged obligations. 

As I wrote that letter my confidential clerk copied the sheets (T kept a copy without reading 
over the original or even the copy before I got to Albany) for the purpose of enabling me to shew 
it to Mr. Butler. I did so, and he remarked that it was all right, and he was glad I wrote it. 
He said the ideas were very strongly expressed but the reservation I refer to rendered that harm- 
less in point of language, and I must therefore confess I was surprised to find that the charac- 
ter of the language I used had found its way to your " Sensibilitv,'' or that you could for one 
moment consider me guilty of "rudeness." As to the other letter, I am equally surprised at 
the exception. If these were considered exceptionable, then I fear the one I wrote covering one to 
Mr. Hamilton would be deemed still more so. I had reason to be dissatisfied with Mr. Hamilton 
for having misled me in his letter early in March. I may have written the last letter under the 
influence of that feeling. When I tell you. however, that I meant nothing inconsistent with my 
former relation to you, and that J shall not hereafter obtrude either my opinions or advice vpon 
you in relation to any subject, 1 should hope I had made satisfactory atonement. 1 am per- 
fectly aware of the responsibility of your situation, and God knows there is no man living that 
would be more gratified than I should to have you acquit yourself with reputation. I am very 
much oblcdged to you for your interference with Mr. Bowne. I shall not get that place, and 
I can tell you how I was kept out of it. Mr. Maxwell, when he got alarmed, goes to Judge 
Hoffman and tell.-* him he was to he removed, and that his son, Ogden.had better be a candidate 
for the office. Mr. Bowne tells Rikcr, confidentially, and he tells an Alderman that you would 
be pleased to see me put there. This comes to the ear of Hoflman, and he goes to all the Clin- 

tonian Aldermen, .... of the 4ih and 8th wards, &c. &c., and insinuates this idea 

to them, and with all the adroitness peculiar to that family, rakes up old prejudices, enlists Duer, 
who is attached to youne Hoffman, with all the coodies, high minded, and Glintonians, and I 
was defeated. Duer was in the thickest of this. No Clintonian in the Legislature voted for 
But'er, snve one or two ; not one of the corporation voted for me. IVe had become obnoxious 
for our services in the cauM of another leader. There is not old staunch democrncv enough in 
the Common Council to elect me. It is not then surprising that my inveteracy to that concern, 
coodies, high minded and all, should be as strong as it is. Mr. Duer is now plaving the same 
game that Maxwell plnved on WechiPsday (J;imes Campbell authorised me to sny so) — he went 
to Judge Hoffman and told him th;it he had such information as satisfied him that he would be 
removed, and that he did not know whv In's s^in Ogden should not be appointed. i\Ir. Duer had 
then been informed that Mr. Hamilton lind the option to t'lke the office. He told me on Tues- 
day that Mr. Hamilton could not take it. for on that subject he was " Committed on paper." 
Mr Bnnner told me the same thins on Monday, at Albany. After this Mr. Duer goes to Judge 
Hoffman, and, with what motive it is not diflicult to divint\ 

I did sta'e to Mr. Bo" ne thnt. a« t'lings now stood, T cou'd not Except the office of Altorney for 
this Comity, nor can [ if it could he given me, after whut f write you, with any degree of honor. 
I informed the gentlemen who were instrumental in getting up a caucus here on Saturday and 
Wt-dnesdav last, Cwhich, by the bye, were perfect abortions.) that I had no expectations of Mr. 
Duer's office, for I kn'^w from the beeinning ;/ you tone not for me it was idle to say any thing 
on the suhirct: and [ need nofsa> that I Inve not been promised any aid from you. though I 
thought then and now think I had strnnsr claims on you nsa p^irtv man and a pev.cona! tViend — 
and such T undcr'ake to say is the universal sen'iment of evei-y b'dv hce, of.'ill j'arfies who have 
witne.'ssed mv exertions to snsiain \ovt aga'nst the intamous attacks of your enemies. More 
riian 20 leading men here tendered theirnames and among the rpi^t 'Mr. J, C Hnmillon : your 
silence induced me to decline the proffer. [ HAVE NO INHERENT LOVE OF OFFICE, 
and f have not therefore studied discretion or weighed pronouns and advirhs in my letters to 
" Constitiitioiiril advisers'' and advisers not ronsi'tu ionni at V^'aKliinfton. / Anow Tiii: fxact 
UXTE.NT of 7111/ prrtfusioiis, mil S''rvire'>, chrinis, CAPACITY, and POWER — they are small and 
inconsiderable — But when all or any of ihrrn — hall not be pr^ perly respected by those whom I 
think ou'rht to resppct then^,! should be unvv'Tm? to submit in silence without beinc; aiarmed 
at any fate that might await me. FolUicttl MelUy, untiring induslry and perseverance will 



<' I'VK GOT THE BOTTS, HIP-JOINT, GRAVEL, HALT, AND FOUNDERS." 219 

one day or other find their value in the political market. These qualities I claim to possess, and 
which I deem important ingredients in forming and which nearly make up a capital, on which 
one can conmience business on his own account. It would grieve me as much and' infinitely 
more than it possibly could you to be under the necessity of differing so far as to lead to a sever- 
ance of that friendship which I know has e.xisted. You have the power to make me District 
Attorney, but I could not sufficiently abhor myself if I was " to quarrel with you" for omitting 
to do it. Yet if Mr. Duer is not removed or any but a democrat is appointed I should do vio- 
lence to the principles you have taught me not to be dis?ati?tied ; and I do not think your nature 
is so much changed as that you would require me to withhold the expression of that dissatisfac- 
tion. Lorenzo tells me I had better abandon all ideas of political preferment till the coodics 
and high minded have become exterminated. Perhaps he is right. I have said all I have to 
say, and perhaps more than I should have said, but the ground upon which your letter places 
us seemed to require equal candor on my part, I will not attempt to disguise the fact that my 
feelings were such toward you that I fancied I was entitled to know the principles upon which 
you were to dispense your political power, and to be informed frankly inhetker it was expedient 
to ask for the place of an obnoxinus incumbent. The confidence I should have reposed in your 
friendly advice, which I thought myself entitled to, but which was withheld, would have satisfied 
me, whatever it might have been. Your total silence on this subject, with the apprehension at- 
tending it, led to the anxiety to be infomied whether your friends and enemies were to be put 
in, hotch-potch, without any more adhesive qualities than oil and water, and which could never 
be reduced to a reasonable consistence. It was not inconsistent with my regard for you to point 
to the danger of such a course : whether I have by so doing forfeited your confidence is a matter 
somewhat lessened in nnportance to me, from a conviction of the purity of my motives. 

Yet, as I ever have been, Your friend, J. HOYT. 



[Pmo. 184.] Eevenue Offices dispensed in paytnent of Political services— for electioneering — to 
uphold needy families, 65c. — a Primitive Jackson-man ! 
New York, 28 April, 1829.— To the Collector of the Port of New York. — Sir- The bearer 
Mr. Benj. C. Burdett, WAS ZEALOUSLY ENGAGED IN OUR LATE CONTEST and 
deserves the appointment he solicits, which I understand to be that of an Inspector. 

I am, &c. C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

"New York, 30 April, 1829.— The collector of the Port of New York.— Sir: Mr. James 
Maurice, AN OLD AND ACTIVE POLITICIAN, desires a station in our Custom House, 
and is worthy of THE PATRONAGE of the government. C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

Mr. Maurice is a Republican of the old school, and a warm and devoted friend to Gen. 
Jackson. JEROMUS JOHNSON— JOHN HILLYER— M. M. NOAH." 

Here is another wonderful document — 
New York, April 29th 1829. To S. Swartwout, Esq. We the undersigned doo recommend 
Abraham Meserole, as a very suitable peison for one of the Custom House Inspectors, and would 
gladly se him appointed, knowing him ion allways having been a warm Pupp'Tter of Gen'l 
Jackson. M. M. NOAH, H. ECKFORD, WM. S. COE, JEREMIAH DODGE, JERO. 
iMUS JOHNSON." 

Immediately below this, is the following rare and curious request, on the same sheet and 
page of paper, 

" Dear Sir — When you have leisure, and take up the numerous applications for office." in the 
Custom h'use Hepnrtment, I m'ke this memoranWom FOR FEAR IT MAY ESCAPE YOUR 
MEMORY, THAT MR. ABRAHAM MESEROLE IS A NEPHEW OF MINE. His 
brother Bernard the Alderman of the 10th Ward, was a candida'e for the office T fill, supported 
by a ?tronjr petition of Jickson's friends — would take it as a particular favor, H?" IF THEKE 
IS A VACANCY AFTER REMEMBERING YOUR RELATIVES, j-fi if yo„ would dve 
him a commission. Yours truly, JEROMUS JOHNSON. 

[No. \85.] C. C. Cnmbreleno; to Collector Swnrtwont, New York, 28 April, 1829.— Sir: 
Mr. Jac'^ L. Dickenson is, I understand, an ■ipplicant for the office of fnspertor. Mr D. hes 
been one nf mir mnsi uniform republicans, AND WAS DISTINGUISHED FOR HIS ZEAL 
AND A TIVITY IN OUR LATE CONTEST. No man deserves wore than he does the 

PATRONAGE OK HIS PARTT. C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

To Samuel Gnuverneur, Postmi.'ster, N Y. — Dear Str : Thp benrer. Mr. Wl-atpy jg rhe gen- 
tleman I sp ke to vou n'ooit yectH dav— HE IS A VERY ACTIVE POLITICIAN, and wants 
an nppointment in the Cn=tom Honoe. You will confer a particub'r favor <." rne bv eiving- bim 
a few lines of rocommendation to Mr. Swartwout. M. M. QUACKENBOSS. 



220 THE KNAVE AND FOOL's TEST— WASSON, A JAGKSON-MAN ! 

Mem. (Handwriting of S. Swartwout.)— " Alexander Whaley is strongly recommended by 
Mangle M. Quackeiiboss. He is also opposed to Purdy." [Whaley got $1100 a year.] 

John Morris, " an ardent and capable politician," applied for his share of the spoils to Collec- 
tor Swartwout, in 1831, immediately after the close of his (Morris's) political exertions at the 
fall election of that year. He was recommended by the signatures of John Yates Cebra, Daniel 
Jackson, C. F. White, Chas. Henry Hall, Waller Bowne, and Jeromus Johnson. Alderman Cebra 
wrote his friend Swartwout as follows : " New York, Nov. 21, 1831. — Mr. Morris has for seve- 
ral years been one of our m.ist active and efficient Jackson republicans in the first ward — and 
is now ACTIVELY AND ZEALOUSLY engaged with us." 



[No, 186.] William M. Price, to Samuel Swartwout, Collector, N. Y. March 30, 1829.— 
My Dear Sir : Alderinm Dickenson of the 15th Ward is one of the pkijiitive Jackson menA 
He is ari upright, worthy fellow, and is withal very poor. He is an applicant for an Inspector's 
place, and 1 believe his appointment would be generally well received. 

Yours truly, WILLIAM M. PRICE. 



[No. 187.] Silas M. Stilwell, to Collector Swartwout, N. Y. 

New York, 29 April, 1829. — Sir: I apply on behalf of Stephen Stilwell for one of the un- 
der offices in your gift — designate the one you see proper. I siand re.sponsible for his capability. 
He is one of the old reside nters of this city, and as deserving as any in it — a thorough democrat 
of '98, and A JACKSON REFORMER from the beginning of the contest — a prisoner in the 
Revolution — wealthy in 1800 and 1814 — now without property, but always honorable— ^-and 
eaqual to any bujsness attached to the duties of a Custom House officer. Until your perplexing 
season is over I expect not to see you — but rest assured, under all circumstances, of my una- 
bated devotion and esteem. S. M. STILWELL. 
[Remark. — Stephen went into office, at $1095 a year, in due course.] 



/. Oakley, SwartwouVs security, endorses the too notorious George A. Wasson. 
[No. 188.] J. Oakley to S, Swartwout, Collector of Customs, 2 Cedar St. 

"April 28, 1829. — Dear Sir: There is a very deserving man by the name of George A, 
Wasson a measurer attached to the public store. I do not know that he would, under any cir- 
cumstances, be removed, as I understand he has been a Jackson-man, and was appointed 
through the influence of Mr. Baldwin of Pittsburg, who is his friend. As it is a matter of great 
importance to him, however, he has requested me to speak to you on the subject. I wish you 
would have the goodness, if his removal is contemplated, to let me see you. Yours truly, 

J. OAKLEY. 
P. S. Permit me to suggest, by way of manifesting my regard for your comfort, that you had 
better make the removals and appointments which you contemplate, at once. If you do net, 
there will not be as much of you left in a few days as there was of the Kilkenny Cats." 

[No. 189.] Commodore Isaac Chauncey to Co/lector Swartwout — Avery good sailor endorses a 

very bad note. 
Navy Yard, Brooklyn, l\Iay 1, 1829. — Dear Sir : Allow me to introduce to your notice, Mr. 
George A. Was.son, who was appointed by Mr. [Jonathan] Thompson as inspector of the Cus- 
toms, last Summer, partly by my solicitation. Mr. Was.son is a worthy man, in whose welfare 
I feel much interest ; and is the individual that I spoke to you about some time since. He vnli 
relate to you his situation and wishes. If you can continue him in office you will not only 
serve a worthy man BUT RETAIN A GOOD OFFICER, and confer a personal favor upon, 

Dear Sir, your faithful friend, I. CHAUNCEY. 



[No. 190] Jacob B.irker, New York, to Lorenzo Hoyt, Albany. 

New York, 1st May, 1830. — Dear Sir: You have herewith recommendation of sundry per- 
sons interested in the Bank of Washinston and Warren. If Mr. Sherman should he selected, 
he will give Alderman Gideon Lee and John R. Hedley, Esqs., ns security — they are hislily re- 
spectable and responsible men. Alderman Lee is very rich. The names of some stockholders 

t Dickenson's cnse is nnother ilhistrntion of the dishonest system of selcctins; revenue ofllcers becnu'se of tlieir po- 
litical opinions, nnd pfiyinplhem for tlieir profession of the principles, or their adherence t» the men. thnt prove 
successful. Dickenson writes Swiirlwont, .March :10, 18'29 (.hefore it was even known publicly thnt he would he 
colle'-tor,) " In principle and soni I mn, ih.-ink find. .lackson, nnd inke some little credit for hcing a primitive 
one " Miitthuw 1. Diivis writes Swiirtwi>ul. three diiys iifier, " Me is a democrnt, nnil supported the electoral ticket 
that vdlfd for (lenerMl.luckson." AMerumii (,'ownn writes nnd tells Swartwout, that " on the score of .lacksoni^m he 
has strong claims, m he was one of the first .lackson Oiunmiltee ever formed in this citv." Mr. Samuel Townsend 
assures him that Dickenson "has for n long time been n strenuous siijiporlcr of the man who now swnys the destinies 
of the American people." Mr. Jesse Ctiikley certifies tlmt D. "is one of the original Jackson meii— not of the 
eleventh hour." 



BENNETT, BARKER ANB DECATUR— A TAMMANY ! FREE PRESS. 221 

have been mentioned, but as a question of liability will arise from ihe peculiar phraseology of 
the act of incorporation, 1 think it would be very unwise to appoint any party interested, there- 
fore I hope that Mr. Lathrop or Mr. Sherman will be appointed, or both of them. 

Yours smcerely, JACOB BARKER. 



Col. Decatur, a worthless official, justifies Clinton's condemnation of his conduct. 
[No. 191.] Col. John Decatur to Collector Swartwout. 

Portsmouth, May 4, 1829. — Dear Sir : This will be handed to you by my particular friend, 
Mr. John Blunt, lately a resident of this town. In making you acquainted with Mr. Blunt, I 
take much pleasure. He is a gentleman who has been extensively engaged in business in this 
place, and in my official duties, as late Naval Store Keeper, have been daily engaged with him 
in mercantile transactions. For a number of years Mr. Blunt has supplied our Navy Yard, and 
I have at all times found him prompt, energetic, and faithful in the per%rmar.ce of his contracts ; 
and w^ere it possible for Mr. B. to reside with us, I know of no man whom I would sooner se- 
lect to the first office in my gift. For the last four years he has actireiij <:nd openly advocated 
the claims of our present worthy chief magistrate, and ihe reputation maintained by Mr. Blunt 
has been such in this section of the country, that we trust his talents have not been engaged un- 
successfully. Should it be necessary to have an assistant editm; to aid Mr. Noah in warding 
off the malignant shafts of the coalition party, which will be made on you, in consequence of the 
general sweep which I presume you intend to make in your office, I know of no more suitable 
man than this said Cod of mine, and I therefore request that you will add one more obligation I 
am already under, by giving him an appointment in the Custom House. 

Yours with esteem and aflec'.ion, DECATUR. 

[Remarks. — Col. John P. Decatur, whom Gov. Clinton had exhibited to the world, as very dis- 
gracefully interfering in State elections some years before at Brooklyn, and who figured dis'repu. 
tably in the Chemical Bank trial, was appointed by General Jackson, Collector of Portsmouth, 
N. H., in April, 1829. In May, he wrot« to his friend Swartwout as above. Jackson and Van 
Buren's advent to power, was fortunate for jockies, jugglers, gamblers and blacklegs.] 

Webb and the Courier — Flagg, Wright and Croswell — an Editor in leading strings to the 
Wire Pullers of Tammany — What am I to do ? — Butler and Tibbets — Making terms with 
the Press. 

[Three letters — James Gordon Bennett to Jesse Hoyt, N. Y.] 
[No. 192.] PniLADELPmA, 7th June, 1829. — Dear Sir: When I first contemplated leav- 
ing New York a few days, I promised to write you occasionally. Of course I consider the pro- 
mise still good. 1 have been part of three days here, and have mixed a good deal with the lead- 
ing Jackson men. They received the account of the Union of the Enquirer and the Courier with 
' utter astonishment.' So they told me in express terms. They cannot conceive how the party 
in New York can repose confidence in Mr. Webb. Such is the sentiment here. I shall write 
you again fi'om Washington. In the meantime, will you do all you can about the paper ? Spur 
up Butler for he wants it. I am, Dear Sir, yours truly, JAMES G. BENNETT. 

[No. 193.] Washington, 11 June, 1829. — Dear sir: I arrived here the day before yes. 
terday. I called on Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Ingham. They are both in favor of the new Dem- 
ocratic paper or the old one renovated. The feeling against the coalition runs about as strong 
here as in New York. They knew it would be corrected by the public men in New York. 
Major Moore of Kentucky is here. He brings accounts from the west that some movements 
are making of a curious nature between Judge McLean (late postmaster) and Mr. Clay. * * 

J. G. BENNETT. 
[No. 194.] Albany, 20th July, 1829. — Dear Sir : Since I arrived here I have seen our 
friends in the Argus office and State department — I mean Major Flagg, Mr. Wright, and Mr. 
Croswell. They are very friendly, but they say they have heard little of our local matters in 
New York, consequent on the sale of the Enquirer, with the exception of a passing remark from 
Mr. Cambreleng, as he passed through here a few weeks ago. They speak in the highest terms 
of Mr. Barnum, and assure me that he is every way capable for the position in New York. I 
am sorely puzzled to know what to do. Although our friends here think it a very favorable op- 
portunity to start a new paper, yet they think it a very hazardous experiment. They told me 
to-day that if the party had the control of the political course of the Courier and Enquirer, it 
would be more eligible than a new paper. This they think could be done by placing an editor 
there under the auspices of the General Committee — an Editor v.'ho would take care of the in- 
terests of the party and its friends. They are afraid that the political patronage is not suffi- 
cient tor the support of a new paper, and they are of opinion that a jmnnal which now enjoys all 
such patronage 'as the Courier and Enquirer ought to give up its columns to a political Editor 
appointed by the General Committee. I wish you could get me out of these contradictory views 
and opinions. If you and Mr. OAKLEY, and Mr. CODDINGTON, and a few other of our 



222 BENNETT, BURROWS, BTTTLER, VAN BUREN, WEBB & MACKENZIE. 

friends could settle what course I shall take previous to my return, I DO NOT CARE WHAT IT 

IS — 1 shall adopt it — I know it will be a proper course. Which is the best and cheapest mode 
of expressing die views of the party ? A new or an old paper. 1 shall be impatient for action 
when I return. Now is the time to sow the seed. This is the spring of politics. The birds 
are beginning to sing. I cannot resist those influences, and if you set yourself to work, I know 
you can accomplish the matter to a T. Do not call me a heretic, and a trif/ling fellow, because 
I have spoken thus much of C. and E. // it be heresy, then undoubtedly must head-quarters be 
in a bad way. 

On the evening before I left New York, I received a letter informing me that the Herald in- 
tended to publish on Saturday morning last this — " The last rallying point of the Republicaa 
Party has been surrendered, by the purchase by the Courier of the services and prospects of the 
gentleman who was to have published the N. Y. State Enquirer, &c. &c. &.c.'' I went to the 
office of the Herald and t(^ them it was untrue, and forbid its publication. Snowden will tell 
you the whole story. It appears that Mumford went to the Herald and told them the story. 
You can see in this the finger of our friend BUTLER and Elisha Tibbets probably, who want to 
make as much mischief as possible. I hope old King Caucus will remember them. I shall 
write nothing for the C. and E. during my tour — that you requested to do. Tell Mr. Ocikley 
that my next letter I shall write to him probably from the Springs. 

I am. Dear Sir, yours truly, JAMES G. BENNETT. 

P. S. — If you have any thing to say particularly in the course of this week write to Buffalo to 
me. Mr. Croswell thinks that under present circumstances the Republican General Committee 
can make their own terms with Webb and Tylee. Would not a private meeting of our friends 
on the subject be a good first step? 

Va7i Buren disclaims all knowledge of the revolutionary intentions ascribed to Mackenzie. 
[No. I94a] Daniel Brent, to W. L. Mackenzie, York, U. C. 

Department of State, Washington, 28th July, 1830. Sir: Your letter of the first of thief 
month to the Secretary on the subject of an article which appeared some time ago in the columns 
of the New York Courier and Enquirer, and has since been republished in other public jour- 
nals, both of Canada and the United States, with additional innuendos and particulars, was re- 
ceived on the 18th instant at this office, during his absence ; but I lost no time in communica- 
ting its contents to him. The object of the article or articles referred to is, to indicate a visit to 
the United States and to this capital during the last summer, as connected with some revolution- 
ary movement in the Canadas, in relation to which your agency was employed with the Fede. 
ral Government ; and you call upon the Secretary in his official capacity positively and decided- 
ly to contradict it. 

I have, accordingly, just received a letter from Mr. Van Buren, the Secretary, dated at Albany, 
the 23d of this month, expressly authorising me to deny all knowledge of, or belief, on his part, in 
the designs imputed to you, as I now have the honor of doing, and to state moreover, that he has 
not the smallest ground for believing, that your visit had anything political for its object. He 
directs me also to add, that if the President were not likewise absent from the seat of Govern- 
ment he is well persuaded he would readily concur in the declaration which I have thus had ihe ho- 
nor of making in his behalf. I am, &c, DANIEL BRENT, Chief Clerk. 

Silas E. Burrows and his schemes — Swartwout puffs him to General Jackson, of whom he was 
long an adviser by the back stairs — Silas wants his Consul at Panama, ijc. 
[No. 194, 6] Collector Swartwout to General Andrew Jackson. 

New York, 15th August, 1829. Dear Sir: The accompanying letter has just been handed 
to me by tho enierprisinsr and iiitelligenl writer of it, with a request that I would forward it to 
you. Mr. Burrows has not his equal, in our City, for commercial enterprise. You will readily 
perceive on perusing his communication, the extent and utility of the proposed line of communi- 
cation between different and very distant parts of South America, It is reaMy surprising that a 
gmtleman, sinizle handed and without the aid of the Government, should have projected and 
actually carried into execuiioii, such an extensive and very important operation. But his zeal is 
not surpassed by his perfect independence nj character. It was intimiiled to him n vear or two 
ago. that Government felt so deep an interest in this affair, th.it thev would be willing to rontri- 
bute largelv towards its completion, but Mr. Burrows, being a gentleman of fortune and great 
pride of feeling, said NO. He preferred the whole expence and the whole credit of it, and he 
will not swerve from thnt determination. All the aid he requires from Government, is the ap- 
pointment of Mr. Everet a? Consul at Panama, where there never was one before, and where 
there arc no Americans residinc at presini. This appointment is important to him. Tt ih'' sin- 
gle reason, th it he knows that hiscommi'rcial ngeni, if clothed with i-onsulnr dignity and authority, 
will be more respected, in thn' country particularly, than if he went there as n mere merchant. 
The person seleited, Mr. Everet, is active and intelligent, and a warm and zealous friend of 
thic prcacnt adminiatratian. 



SWARTWOUT SEEN TO ADVANTAGE — WARRING WITH FRAUD. 223 

Independently of the merit of this Enterprise, Mr. Burroios is considered, universally in our 
City as one of the most upright, honorable and gentlemanly men in the community. I am person- 
ally known to him, and I can assure your Excellency thai no man possesses more of my confi- 
dence and esteem than Mr. Burrows. As this gentleman has already done a great deal for that 
country which cannot fail to benefit his own, and which has, in fact already benefitted it exceed- 
ingly, he certainly merits the countenance of Government. The steam vessel which he has sent 
thither, and which I visited in company with Mr. Moore, our minister, belbre his departure, can- 
not fail to increase the facilities of communication to an extent certainly never before cuntemplated 
by its inhabtants or by strangers and whilst we have a minister there or an agent of Government of 
inferior rank, this little boat alone will be worth thousands of dollars annually to our Government 
and its citizens. The request, therefore, of Mr. B., that Mr. Everet may be appointed a consul 
where there never was one before, and where it is important that Mr. B. sliould have an agent, and 
where the Government of the United States will also soon require one is. a very small request — 
and I feel persuaded, your Excelleacy will consider it so reasonable and proper as to give it 
vour immediate sanction.! 



The ' Eeform' Appraisers, Coe if Co. described by Swartwout — Justice to the ISIerchants, as 

doled out by Bernard J. Messerole, Jeromus Johnson, Ichabod Frail, and the Custom House 

.Politicians of 1830 — Espionage boldly defended, 

[Remarks. — I do not know whether the following letter, marked ' Private,' is, or is not an 
oflficial document. If it is, it is perhaps the only one I have copied from Custom House manuscripts, 
into this book. While 1 was copying it, Mr. Webber went down to Mr. Hunter, the assistant- 
auditor, and told him what I was doin,'. Hunter went to the auditor, Mr. Ogden, who said that 
the Records were in charge of Mr. Bogardus — who, with Hunter, came up, stopt about twenty 
minutes, but made no remarks. The original is among the old letters, &c. 

In May and June. 18.30, Jeromus JohnsoiT, William S. Coe, app'd April 1829, and A. B. 
Mead, went into office as appraisers at New York, and Bernard J. Messerole, D. L. Dodge, 
Ichabod Prall, and Ben. Brewster, as a^ssistant-appraisers. They were, nearly all, convenient, 
plausible, serviceable party instruments ; pretenders to republican principles, of which they had 
but little ; but grossly ignorant of the prices and qualities of goods which it was their duty to ex- 
amine and value. Mr. Swartwout's letter, written three months after, shows how ihiy conduct- 
ed business The Mr. Gardner he speaks of was, / suppose, the Samuel S. Gardner, who had 
been a deputy-collector under Thompson, Stephen Allen, &c., and clerk to Receivers of the 
Tradesmen's Bank in 1826. It could not have been D. Gardiner, the Inspector. By rewarding 
%vor;hless, artful, electioneering hacks to selfish party leaders, with very influential offices, the 
duties of which are unconnected with politics, business suffers, honesty is punished, undermined, 
or crushed, and the public morals are deeply injured. — W. L. M.] 

[No. 195.] Collector Swartwout to Secretary Ingham, Washington. 

New York, 1st Sept. 1830. — Private.— Dear S\r : lam very sorry that the removal of Mr. Gar- 
dner from the appraiser's office, should be considered by you as an act of personal hostility on 
my part, or that of any other disinterested person. I have often informed you that Mr. Gard- 
ner A.SSUMED AT TIMES — or had it granted to him — or appraising the merchandise, which was 
sent to the appraiser's offlce for exnmination. and WHICH WAS CERTIFIED TO BY THE 
APPRAISERS [sworn officers!!] WITHOUT THEIR HAVING SEEN THE GOODS. I 
had even spoken to the appraisers about it. / saw it myself, and so reported it to you. I did 
consider it. and do now consider it, a piece of gross assurance on the part of Mr. Gardner, and 
of most culpable neglect on the part of the appraisers. I could not remedy it, and wrote you that 
it was so. Was I to blame for that? But further— Many merchants did complain to me of 
Mr. Gardner's interference, while the appraisers were examining goods — and of his saying to 
them such and such goods are too high — and they adopted his judgment. This was com- 
plained of. 

He was not a clerk, but styled himself an assistant to the appraisers. His constant occupa- 
tion, to my knowledge, for I saw it daily, was to hand them goods, stating their value, and get. 

t Silns E. Biirrowc. (son of Enoch) and his history are well kn"wn in New York. He appears to have been 
deeply concerned with Collector Swnitwout, and other deep specuhitors part of that bund who joined " rn the gen- 
eral scramble for plunder," which thevso artfully covered up. in 1808—9. with the cloak of patnoti.-m. Buirows 
pot in debt, and failed, but $IO,nOO of his creditors means e.xpemled on a tomb to the mother of Washington a 
show of patriotism, with a world of puffs, from f^wartwout and others, had helped him along. He went strong tot 
Jackson— negotiated a loan for his very dear friend Noah— went with Swnrtwont as a conservative— and at the 
Tallmadge dinner. New York May 26,1841. when Van Buren's successor hnd gone to his Inst rest, toasted ■• .lohn 
Tyler, the disciple of .lefferson, the bosom friend of VV. H Harrison." In Sept 1820 or 30. Swartw.oil enclosed to 
Van Ruren. then Sec'y of State, Burrow's correspondence with the baron Krudener. and asked %■ me high mark ot 
e.xpcotive approbation for him. " Mr. B. (said Swartwout) is one of our boldest and most deservuig niercharts and 
a ffentleiivin cf the noblest and most chivalrick feelings— hence this pr-mpt and generous conduct towaids his un ■ 
foituaate fellow beings. But the jirivate virtues are so haj)pily blended," &.c. 



!S^4: AMERICAN MERCHANTS PLUNDERED AT THE CTTSTOlifHOlfl^. 

ting them to mark them accordingly. If such conduct was right, I was wrong in giving you 

information of it — not otherwise. 

Again. — Mr. , a very respectable merchant, called upon me at my lodgings, to inform 

me confide ntidlly, (and merchants will not give information in any other way,) that goods had 
passed the appraisers the day before, AT A LESS DUTY BY 50 PER CENT than he had 
paid for similar goods in the same vessel: and to convince me of it, he had bought a bale ©f the 
very goods thus passed, and had them in his store, where he would shew me, and satisfy me of 
the truth of what he said, by marks and numbers. I did visit his store, and found the facts, as 
stated by him, to be true. On enquiring at the appraisers, I found that it was Mr. Gardner 
who had INFLUENCED the appraisers in their decision — and, so paramount was his authority 
or , that his opinion prevailed — and this is not all. 

The Book in which a Clerk in the appraiser's office had recorded another decision, was taken 
from his desk, in his absence, and altered so as to correspond with his [Mr. Gardner's] own de- 
cision. This was done, too, with the entry, which was altered by the same person, to corres- 
pond with the alterations in the pooks. The Clerk in whose Books this was done, gave me 
the information — secretly I admit,'but not feloniously nor improperly. Th«y were no spies, but 
honest clerks. 

To show you that I was disposed to do my duty, I SENT FOR MR. COE, one of the ap- 
praisers, and informed him of it. He appeared to be very much shocked at the thing, and 
promised me he would probe it to the bottom, let who would suffer. I told him I was convinced 
it was Mr. Gardner from all the circumstances, the hand-writing, the erasures, &c. — 0° but I 
never heard any thing more about it from the appraisers. This is what I meant by " infidehty 
to his trust." 

It was not necessary that you should do this act upon the faith of what I stated. Mr. Gard- 
ner is nothing to nie, but / %oas obliged to notice his conduct, and what they said of it, but you 
were not compelled to believe me or them. I am willing to make oath to what I have stated, 
but I may not be able to get merchants to do the same. What took place in the appraiser's 
office can be testified to by the clerks and others ; but they would do it with reluctance, I ap- 
prehend, if the Treasury should attribute it to " improper passions." 

I cannot give you the names of those who communicate to me confidentially. I obtain in- 
formation, daily something of great importance — secretly, to be sure, but I cannot divulge the 
sources of it. I would rather not act than compromitmy honor in a matter of such importance. 

You appear to be surprised that Mr. Gardner is removed. I acted upon the authority of your 
letter to remove him from the appraisers' office, and give him employment somewhere else. I 
wrote to Mr. Gardner a very polite note, stating that I had the honor to enclose him a letter I 
had that day received from the Treasury Department, and I also sent the original to the apprais- 
ers. Mr. G. never came near me from that day to this. He left the appraisers, but did not ac- 
cept the offer to be employed elsewhere, because he is rich, being worth, it is supposed, sixty 
thousand dollars — and does not want and would not accept a subordinate situation elsewhere at 
half his former salary. I am, &c., S. S. 

[No. 19G.] Churchill G. Cambreleng, M.C., to Jesse Hoyt, Albany. 

Washington, 30th Dec, 1830. — Dear Sir: See our Engineer, Mr. Jervis, and see every man 
who can aid our Branch Railway petition, or who will help us to give the Turnpike Company 
its quietus. There is a secret about Judge Peck's trial — the federal minority in the Senate 
mean to sustain him — the case is an outrageous violation of the rights of a citizen. Tlie Planet, 
a new locomotive of Stevenson's, has gone from Liverpool to Manchester and back again in 60 
minutes, including two minutes stoppage ! See the members of the Committee in the two 
Houses — and let me know to whom I can send of our charters. 

Sincerely yours, C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

The Quartermaster Generalship — Prosper 31. Wetmore and the Flash Fire Co's. — Wetmore 
and Webb candidates — the militia mixed up with party services — JVebbs great military ex- 
perievce — Noah a candidate unknown to Webb — Wetmore denounced by Webb and Noah — 
Sandford goes for Wetmore. 

[No. 197.] Col. James Watson Webb, N. Y., to Jesse Hovt, Esq., Albany. 

Private. New York, Jany. 8, 1831. 

Dear Hoyt : A gentleman called upon me to-day and asked whether I would prefer being 
Q'r. Master General to Lieut. Colonel of the Governor's Guard ; and proceeded to state that 
Bayard being absent in Florida, Prosper M. Wetmore, was pushing very hard to be appointed 
in his stead. He informed me that Lawson had pledged himself to get it for him, and made a 
visit to Albany last week, solely and exclusively on that account. He also told me what I did 
not before know, that in consequenrv of WETMORE'S connexion with the " Life and Fire'' 
or some other such company, the 21th Regiment of Artillery compelled him to resign. He is 
consequently obnoxious to the Military, many of whom turned their eyes to me— not for 



•WETMORE, WEBB, AND NOAH, RACING FOR A 0^ TITLE. 225 

love, aflection or respect, hut simply because they thought I could defeat Wetmore. I know 
Wetmore only as tlie author of Lexington and other poetic productions, and as the great gun of 
Swartwout and Lawson. I owe him no ill will, nor do I feel it incumbent upon me to ask 
whether in seeking my own advancement I tread upon his toes or not. To cut the 
Viutter short, I want to be Q'r. Master General. It gives me the rank of Brigadier, and the 
duty will be less than that of my present appointment. There are no emoluments attached to 
the office, and consequently even an Editor may be appointed without the censure of the oppo- 
sition. Ten years of my life spent in the army, qualify me for it, and I may, without vanity, 
eay, make me more competent to the discharge of its duties than any other applicant. As an 
evidence of how the Military estimate my army services, I need only mention that in January 
last I was elected Lieut. Colonel of the Guards, when in Albany, without knowing personally 
but one officer of the Regiment, and this, too, without my having been consulted on the subject. 
You know what would have been the consequence of my having come out for Root instead of 
Throop last Summer, ajid it will be somewhat strange if he refuses to grant so small a favor 
as to consider me as worthy of the office as P. M. Wetmore. 1 do not wish to be known as an 
applicant so long as there is a possibility of defeat, and have therefore determined to write only 
to the following persons on this subject. From you I expect all you can do, nor would I write 
to my persons on such a subject unless I felt that I would be pleased to render them a similar 
ser ice. I wrote to Selden, C. L. Livingston, the Governor, Lt. Governor, Messrs. Dix, Tallmadge 
and Hubbard of the Senate, and Edmonds of the house. With any of these speak freely, and to 
any other you choose, but not to let it be known that I do apply unless I succeed. Cargyl of our 
delegation, and also Ostrander, are very friendly. In short. Do as I would do by you — nothing 
more. All well here, and I beg you to accept our thanks for your letters, although you did 
make me publish your hit at Monroe. Your friend, in haste, JAS. WATSON WEBB. 

N. B. You entirely misapprehended our remarks about Selden. Say it shall be attended 
to.— W. 

N. B. I have written to Edmonds telling him to call and ask to see this. — W. — also to 
Selden.— W. 

P. S. If I am not appointed W. must not get it — it will injure the Governor if he gives it 
to him. — W. I enclose you the letter to the Governor, which read and hand to him. Noah 
you will perceive has been named but he cares noticing about it. I do. Send all the letters I 
enclose to the persons to whom directed, 

[No. 198.] Lieut. Col. Webb to Lieut. Governor Throop. 

Office of the Courier and Enquirer, New York, Jany. 8, 1831. 
To His Excellency, &c. — Dear Sir : I have learnt to day, for the first time, that in conse- 
quence of Mr. Bayard's absence, applications have been made for the appointment of Qr. Mas. 
ter General. I am not in possession of any facts which authorize me to say that Mr. Bayard 
does not intend to return to the City ; on the contrary, he suggested about eighteen months since 
that the situation would suit me — said he had some idea of leaving the state ; and that, in the 
event of his doing so, he would let me forward his resignation, and at the same time become an 
applicant to succeed him. If, hovvever, it is in contemplation to appoint a successor, I beg that 
I may be considered an applicant. Of my fitness for the situation, perhaps the best evidence is 
to be found in nearly ten years service in the U. S. Army ; with what reputation your Adjutant 
General, Major Dix, can inform you. Of the value placed upon those services here. I 
have no other evidence than my being elected, in January last, Lieutenant Colonel of the Go- 
vernor's Guard, by the officers of that Regiment, without being known to but one of them ; and 
elected, too, without any previous consultation or information on the subject. It is not my wish to 
be known as an applicant unless I succeed, and therefore I have not applied to the officers of the 
Military in this City ; but if their recommendation is only necessary to ensure my success, an 
intimation to that effect to Mr. Hoyt, who is now in Albany, or to Mr. Selden, or Livingston, will 
be promptly acted upon. I beg, Sir, that my claims may be considered, and that you will do 
me the favor to inform some one of my friends of your determination. 

I am. Sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, JAS. WATSON WEBB. 

SUNDAY MORNING. — On showing this to Noah, a few minutes since, he informed me 
that his name has been used for this appointment, but that he is indifferent about it. I consider 
Mr. Noah as well qualified for the situation, and would be pleased to see him appointed if I do 
do not succeed myself. At all events, his appointment would be more popular than that of any 
person I have heard named. . Yours, &c. J. W. WEBB. 

[No. 199.] Dear Sir: You know well the delicacy of these military appointments among 
military men. I am indifferent, as Mr. W. says, about it, but there are many circumstances 
which ivould render THE APPOINTMENT OF COL. WETMORE, both of a civil and mili- 
tary nature, HIGHLY EXCEPTIONABLE. Several have spoken to me on this subject al- 
ready Yours truly, M. M. NOAH, 



226 TUB ARMY, THE BANKS, THE CAMBUELENGS, AND THE STOCKS. 

[No. 200.] C. W. Sandford, to Lieut. Col. J. W. Webb. 

Thompson Street, Saturday Ev'g., Jan. 8. 
Dear ColoPfl • I have just received yours of this afiernoon, and regret sincerely that I cannot 
comply with your request to address the Governor in favor of your application for the appointment 
of Qr. Master General — simply because, before hearing of /our being a candidate, at the request 
of some friends of Col. Wetmore, I wrote to His Excellency in his behalf. Had 1 known you were 
arf applicant I would unquesiionubly have advocated your appointment — your practical military 
education and experience having given you great advantages (whicli you have well used) in ac- 
quiring information in military affairs. • But havmg already addressed the Governor, I cannot 
with any delicacy or propriety, intrude myself again on this subject. 

Yours very truly, C. W. SANDFORD. 

[No. 201.] R. H. Nevins, Broker, Wall Street, to Jesse Hoyt, at Albany, dated New York, 

14th Jan'y. 1831. 
" Dear Hoyt — I must trouble you to let me know, whether our Banks, now beins; willing to 
take renewals of their Charters on the terms offered to them last winter, will all be able to get 
them ? It was predicted by some persons that some of them might not have anoiher chance. 
And as to a new Trust Co. — do you think that an application from a very respectable list of peti. 
tioners will succeed in getting a Charter siinilar to the one granted at the last session? ] shall 
be much obliged for your opinion on the above, or on any other subjects that may have to do 
with Wall street. I am willing to run the risk of your opinions, and I hereby bind myself not, 
either by word, deed, or look, to manifest any mortification or disappointment should any bad 
result come of your advices. I hold considerable Life and Trust Co. Stock, which will rise or 
fall probablv when the question is settled about other charters. 

Yours very sincerely, R. H. NEVINS." 

[No. 202 ] Frederick A. Tracy to Jesse Hoyt, Albany. 

New York, Jan. 26, 1831. — Yours of the 22d inst. did not reach me yesterday fill late in 
the day, so that nothing could be done. To-d.iy, at the Bonrd, it was not my luck to get hold 
of any of this stock, altho' some sales were made at from 96} to 97^ — but I have some prospect 
of concluding a bargain for 300 shares. If I make any purchases it will be for vour account 
solely, as I think the stock high. * FRED'K. A.' TRACY. 

[No 203.] Churchill C. Cambrelen?, M. C, to Jesse Hoyt, N. Y. 

Washington, 10 Feb. iB.'il. — DearH : The Senate only wait for our slow Committee 

on Foreign Relations to get up and pnss the bill organizing thf [Daijish?] Commission — there 
ie no other difficulty that I hrivi> henrd of Simpson's nominntion mav encounier opposition, 
but I have heard of none. I differ in opinion wit i our Directors, ab mt the grent unportance of 
a branch line, as it regard'^ our own interest — that lies at the eastern termination — we wish, 
however, to accommodate Albanv, but if the two sections of the town quarrel among them- 
selves and defeat our bill we cant help it. The northnrn pan of the town will suffor, and the 
southern part will be benefited by our havinw no branch. We sh dl cnrrv the business where- 
ver our road goes. Combinations of fragments cant hurt us in general politics — in corporation 
matters we shall eternally have local divisions. In general divisions we have none to fic;ht but 
Clay's friends — and we have Old Hickory against him. Between ourselves. I don't care 
two and sixpence about having a branch line passed — we can get n\>ns well ennngh without it. 
Next year the people of Albany will e glad enough to present the petition themselves — it's in- 
finitely more important to them than to us. 

Very sincerely your friend, ■ C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

[No. 204.] Silas TVT. Stilwell, Albany, to .Tesse Hoyt, New York. 

Albany, 1.5 Feb. 1831. — Doar Hoyt : Your favors have reached me, and I hasten to an.s-wer 
them. The name of Stephen CAMBREr,E^G has been sent into the Senate. I give you this in. 
formation because T know from your letter that it will p'ease vou, and because I like to please 
you — but I am hound to say that alihoue;h I have no objeption to Cam'irelentj. yet T gave Van 
Wyck the prefei'ence — and if I could have had my way — if personal weich' "nd nnxietv of feel- 
inrr couM have given the offien to Van Wyek. so far as relates to me he would have hnd it. 
Van Wyck ii my iViend — I owe him much friendship. This you know — nnd of coup-" he was 
mv man. T have been defeated, and I have the consolation that you will be pleased, nnil that 
Cambreleng is a clever fellow. I nm your friend, S. M. STILWELL. 

Thiiiis Calhniin some ' poor deril's dupe' — Van-Ruren lihcved 1o the h'ph.spiriled horxe — 
Spernlnfors !o be put down — Tkroop's nomination of Vice Chancellor ^IcConn hangs heavy 
in the Smntr. 

[Nn. 20S ] Diidlev Sfilden. M C. fee. to .Tes-oe TTovt, N. York. 
Albany, March 4, 1831. — My Dear Hoyt : My frlenH's letters have not perhaps been an* 

flwe«d as soon as he tliinks they ought — but 1 have not been able to read ihem yet — and a man 



JTTDICIOUS fUFFS TO POTOST AND THE POLITICIANS. BASSWOOD. 227 

is certainly entitled to be praised for his punctuality who makes his return to a letter as soon as 
he has perused il 

You need not endorse ' coiifidential' on any of your communications to Livingston or Stilwell 
****** Q,j reading Calhocn's correspondence, I made up my mind very soon 
that he had been the dupe of some poor devil behind the curtain, and had exhibited most egre. 
gious folly in being caught. Your successful competitor for a high place [J. A. Hamilton?] 
seems to hare been the most conspicuous man in bringing up this by-gone transaction — and I 
am glad that Mr. Van Buren, like the high-spirited horse, has shaken the dew from his vianc, 
and exposed the rogue to be taken. 

No news here. Your kind efforts of the D. and H. are duly appreciated. I felt satisfied that 
in sending me the little pamphlet, your whole object was the public good. So is mine— and I 
will, if I can, give the rascally speculators upon time a thrust under the short ribs. 

McCoun [Vice Chancellor] hangs heavy in the Senate. I know not why. As soon as Slee- 
per withdrew (and so I read his letter to the Chancellor; 1 have aided him all I could. 

Yours truly, DUDLEY SELDEN. 



Selden a man of talent — First rate Democratic timber a scarce commodity — ' a judicious puff' 
— thanks the Courier and Enquirer. — Lobbying from within. 
[No. 206.] Silas M. Stilwell to Jesse Hoyt, New York. 

Albany, 7 March 183 L Dear Hoyt : I should have written you before, but that businpss 
begins to press upon us of the city, more and more — and again you know we i>re in the midst 
of my Bill on Imprisonment. I have great hopes. You have doubtless seen Selden's report on 
the Finances, &:-c. You may depend there is an exhibition of talent and business habits about 
that report which is worthy of all commendation — Selden is a man of talent — and I am deter- 
mined the world shall know it. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to back a clever wor- 
thy fellow. I can look the world in the face and say he is honest, he is capable. Yoc know 

THERE IS BUT LITTf.E FIRST RATE TIMBER IN THE DEMOCRATIC RANKS, THAT HAS BEEN DISCOVERED. 

We should therefore prize what we have the more. But 1 am inclined to think that your bar 
cannot present to u« one who (if backed by his friends) will be a greater ornament to the party 
than Selden. I will not speak more on the subject, altho' there is no topic which yields me more 
pleasure. Now permit me to say that nothing will help a political friend so much as a judi- 
cious PUFF through a party paper. Never loas there a finer opportunity, and I commit our 
friend's reputation in that respect to you. Hovt, remember, we ne'er can do too much (and I 
know you think so) f >r a warm hearted, talented friend. Be judicious, and let us see what we 
can do for him. I vvas much gratified on seeing in the Courier and Enquirer, a notice of my 
report. I mu.'^t think better of that establishment than T have done, and will take the first op- 
portunilv of assuring those concerned that I cannot be outdone in genrrcms conduct. It ia my 
intention to back Selden to the utmost of my ability in the tax proposed — and you know T sel- 
di)m fail in my undertakings, for what cannot be done by argument and conduct in the House 
can be carried by activity and cleverne.ts out doors. I feel vpry an.xious to get through and 
return home ; this business is a great sacrifice to me ; and did I not employ my mind and body 
constantly, I shou'd not be able to remain here. Let me hear from you. I write in great haste 
— and be assured I remain, with great respect and esteem, your friend, S. M. STILWELL. 



McAllister of Georgia, and the Gold Mine of Nexo Potnsi. 
[No. 207.] R. J. Arnold and M. H. McAllister to .Tesse Hoyt. Wall street. 

Savannah, May 15. 18.31. — Dear Si'-: Your favor of the 5th inst. is received. In replv, we 
would observe that our Mr. Arnold sails for Npw York on the 23d inst.. and will be authorised 
fo close this business upon the terms he may think best. Tho* what part is sold, must be at a 
handsome profit, for every dav we are receiving more favorable aecoimts from, the Mine. 

To-day McAllister received a\?tte.r from the Gold Region ; Tin extract from it will be given be- 
low. The report alluded to in your letter from the Doctor, will no doubt come to hand by to- 
day's mail. We shall wait with anxiety until it is received. In the meantime we note that 
part of your letter which requests us nnt to interest anv person here. This has not been done. 
On the contrary, every person here is ignorant of our being interested in the Tntosi mine. Y u 
will perceive by the extract froin the letter above alluded to, that the claim has not, as vet, been 
cxtineuished, although we so considered it the last time we wrote Mr. Ward. It is therefore 
very necessarv that this business be kepi an pntire secret for the present. McAllister rcill, in 
a few days, as .loon as the Court rises, start for the Gold Eesion. 

R. .1. ARNOLD, M. H. McALLTSTER. 

Extract. — " With regard to the claim on Potosi, they wish to hold on, on account that they 
" have examined the mine more thnroushlv. and find it much better than fhev expected. THAT 
"PLACE IS THE MOST ASTONISHING IN ALL THE GOLD REGION ; and I hope 
« you will believe me when I say its prospects are verv much more flattering than when you 
" were here — in the language of the writer, 50 per cent better." 



228 OUR NAVY. $33,500's worth of albany regency bait. 

Pushing in the Naval Service — Swariwout wants his Nephew sent ahead of his Seniors. The 

way a thing might he done. 
[No. 208.] Collector Swartwout to Levi Woodbury, Secretary of the Navy, Washington. 
New York, 28th May, 1831. — Sir: This letter will be handed to you by Samuel Smith 
Swartwoui, my nephew, at present a passed midshipman in the U. S. Navy. This young gen- 
tleman entered as midshipman the 10th May, 1820. He was entitled by law, loan examinaiion 
in 1828, but being absent on duty, he did not offer till January, 1829. Ill health and extreme 
diffidence lost him the opinion of the Board, and he was rejected. This unfortunate mishap pro. 
duced so much distress, that, on a second trial, from mere embarrassment alone, he failed again ; 
but the Board, as well as the Secretary of the Navy, from his known talents as an officer, deter- 
mined to encourage him to make a manly effort to overcome a constitutional defect ; and he has 
recently passed an excellent and most creditable examination, and now presents himself to the 
Secretary in the expectation that he will be placed as several officers similarly situated hereto- 
fore have been, upon active duty as a Lieutenant. It is also greatly to be desired, if consistent 
with the regulations of the Navy, that his commission as Lieutenant, when is.sued, should take 
date with those of the midshipmen whose warrants bear date with his own, but who passed in 
1828- The private character of Midshipman Swartwout is irreproachable, and his honor unim- 
peached. He will explain more fully to you, in person, the causes of his failure to pass in 1828, 
and give you such other information as may be of consequence for you to know. S. S. 

Railroads — Turnpikes — Hoyt and Cambreleng. 
[No. 209.] C. C. Cambreleng, M. C, to Jesse Hoyt, New York. 

Albany, 22d August, 1831. — Dear Sir : I am informed about the turnpike movement. The 
stock was appraised at 20 per cent, and the charter was valued at $10,000, making in all about 
$33,500 — about a fair valuation. The distribution of the new stock not yet made. That dis- 
tribution will give offence. Some of the Directors are anxious to push on with the road — others 
are for compromising with our company. The latter have most money, but the result is uncer- 
tain. When they see our locomotive in operation they will abandon their plan of a turnpike and 
rail-road. We should have no trouble with it at all ; but there are some ivho want merely to 
make a BUBBLE of it and take in honest men. I have a perfect understanding with Mr. Corn- 
ing, and if he can in the distribution get a majority, or a controul of it, we shall compromise the 
matter. In the meantime we have advertised for a branch line, and Mr. French is privately at 
work, getting the consent of owners of property through which the line will pass. If no compro- 
mise should be made, wc will make them a proposition which will give satisfaction to nine-lenths 
of the people of Albany, and send the speculators in the new stock with a bad grace to the le. 
gislature. But after all, they must keep up the turnpike, and that kills their rail-rdad project at 
once. The two never can be combined without sinking the capital laid out in boih. We shall 
have our locomotive at work by the end of the week. The boiler went back to ihe road to-day. 
Ours will be an immense stock. I am certain we shall next year average about 800 a day. 

Sincerely yours, C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

Mr. McAllister condemns the Democratic Legislature of Georgia, as stupid, envious and igno. 

rant — /. M. Berrien's efforts to enlighten them — iffurt to obtain special privileges for HoyVs 

gold mine. New Potosi — Why should corporations pay their debts ^ Checks on party legis. 

lation — McAllister swears at 'em.' — Purgatory — The asses who bray for the public. 
[No. 210.] M. H. McAllister, of Georgia, to Ward and Hoyt, New York. 

MiLLEDGEViLLE, [Georgia,] Nov. 27 1831. — Gentlemen: All is over. I have just come from 
the State House. After a struggle of three days in the Senate, wherein an unremitted and hot 
debate has been maintained from morning until night, for two days, we have failed in our object 
of obtaining an Act of Incorporation. The intelligence of the Senate has been beaten by the 
ignorant-wise, grass-fed members who compose a large niajority of the Legislature. No effort 
has been pretermitted, no exertion spared. Berrirn in behalf of the Elrod, Murray in behalf of 
Beers, Booth, and St. .folin, and ourselves, have all maiie uuiteil and untirina: exertions, but all in 
vain. Against US the prejudice is unsparing. They say that the Elrod people have but the 
lease of one mine, whereas we have monopolized a great and valuable minintr interest; and to 
incorporate us would be to hold out an inducement to northern men to embark in it; and the 
effect of their embarking to work the interest would be to create an immense monied interest in 
the State, which would revolutionize its politics. The Clark men, with a fi-w exceptions, opposed 
it with deadly lio^tiliiy. The body of ihe opposite party went for the charter. Fnurteen nrgu. 
nvnts were submitted to the Senate, by as many of the most di-tinguished men in the Hiuise, 
and altho ' but two .spiike against the Bill, such was tin." (hinger apprehended frnm our immense 
wealth (that is to b'.) that the Hill was voted down. I cantiot have patience to write or speak 
deliberately on the subject. For three weeks, day and night, our exertions, together with the 

1 Cnn this be the Matthew Mull McAllister who wiis Dis. Atty. for Georgia, and more recently a Democratic can- 
didate for the office of Governor ? 



A GEORGIA LEGISLATURE, OR ' THE ASSES WHO BRAY FOR THE PUBLIC.' 229 

efforts of many of the leading men in the Senate, hacked hy Berrien, have been unceasingly em- 
ployed—all in vain. THE BESOTTED IGNORANCE AND THE BLIND AND FOOL- 
ISH ENVY" OF THE MAJORITY have carried the day. I have never laboured so severely 
lor the obtainment of any object as of this, and am proportionably, disappointed. On Saturday 
(the 25th) our bill was taken up by sections. On coming to the 2nd seciion an amendment 
was proposed " lo make the individual property of each Stockholder liable for the debt of the 
corporation." On this motion the struggle took place, as the advocates of the Bill knew that if 
it were sustained there was an end to the Bill, as THE ONLY OBJECT CONTEMPLATED 
BY BEING INCORPORATED WOULD BE DEFEATED. The discussion continued all 
Saturday — the excitement was greater than on any question which has arisen this session. The 
advocates of the Bill urged every consideration that men could express ; but all to no purpose. 
The arguments of the opponents to the Bill were, that we had an interest too valuable for any 
set of men in this state, and to induce capitalists to work it by giving an act of incorporation 
would be to make us dangerous to the State, &c. Such stufi" never before issued from the mouth 
of man. The yeas and nays on the motion were called, and it was sustained by a majority of 
three votes. This small majority (,tliere being 76 Senators) inspired the friends of the Bill with 
the hope of ultimate success — they moved for an immediate adjournment, which was carried by 
a majority of one. Saturday night and Sunday were consumed by the mutual efforts of the 
friends and opponents of the Bill in canvassing for and against it. Monday morning we felt se- 
cure, as many as SEVEN MEMBERS HAVING BEEN GAINED OVER; when behold! 
letters were received by a number of the members of both Houses from their constituents, pro. 
testing against their exteJiding legislative protection to us. By the rules of the Bouse, every 
Bill has to be published for a certain lime previously to a third reading ; and thus our effort 
was made known to the people, who instead of regarding the matter in its true light determined 
that we were going to swallow them alive. These letters determined the fate of our Bill. The 
whole of Monday (this day) has been consumed by the intelligent members (about twenty out of 
the whole number) in contending against prejudice, ignorance, and the d t folly ever ex- 
hibited in a Senate Chamber ; but all in vain ; and I have just strength enough after the fatigue 
of the day to write you this much. Berrien is writing the fate of the Bill to Mr. Bolton. * * * * 
Dr. Baber, one of the most intelligent members of the Senate and one of the most active ad- 
vocates of our Act, will write you from time to time as to any thing that may arise hereafter 
upon the subject of our Bill. / leave this infernal place /o-morrow morning. Arnold left here 
for PoTOSi some ie'w days since. I wrote you about the title to the Keith Mine — that it was 
There is no difficulty about title to any of our lots, and thank God for this I for I believe 
otherwise that this rascally apology for a Legislature would take them away if they could. 
»**#** I can tell you that if any one of you had been in the situation I have been in 
this worse than Purgatory, you would express no such surprise. I have not written to my 
wife nor my partner. * * * * A Mr. Dickson has submitted to me the plan the English have 
adopted to work mines in Mexico, where they have no incorporations ; I will submit the same 
when I next write you. TO INDUCE THE ASSES HERE WHO BRAY FOR THE 
PUBLIC at the expense of $4 per diem, to pass our Bill, everything was given vp, " and a 
tax of two per centum on the nett profits, nay five per centum was offered." We asked simply 
to be a corporate body, and this they denied I I should suppose that sympathy alone would have 
induced the majority to vote for corporations, inasmuch as there is a marvellous resemblance 
between them — they are ' bodies without souls.' * * » * They can't touch us as individuals — 
as such, thank God ! we have the federal constitution to protect us. Write to the Hon. Am- 
brose Baber, thanking him, &c., and state whether you will have ap act if the private property is 
made liable. We think it would be worse than useless, &c. 

(2 o'clock, A. M., 28 Nov., 1831.) M. H. McALLISTER. 



Van Buren in London — Evaporation of Anti- Masonry — the Reform Bill — the Cholera. 

[No. 211.1 M. Van Buren, American Minister, to .Tesse Hoyt, at N. York. 

London, Dec. 14, 18.31. — My Dear Sir : I thank you kindly for your attention in sending me 
the newspapers. The result in New York is truly gratifying, and cannot fail to have a decided 
and auspicious effect upon the character of the next session of Congress. It is to be hoped that 
the utter hopelessness of their cause will induce the opposition to withhold a portion at least of 
their wonted opposition to the measures of the general administration, and to give the Old Chief 
a fair chance in his zealous labours to advance the interest of the country. 

I was not at all disappointed at the result in New York, AS THE TIME HAD OBVIOUS- 
LY ARRIVED FOR THE EVAPORATION OF ANTI-MASONRY. 

There is nothing new here that you will not find in the papers. The Reform Bill will, with- 
out doubt, pass by or without a creation of Peers, as circumstances may require. We have been 
in constant dread of th« Cholera, but notwithstanding that the danger has increased, habit has 
lessened our fears. This city is, I have no doubt, as yet entirely exempt from the malignant an4 



230 WEBB, CAMBRELE.VG, THE ASS, McLAKE AND THE BISHOPS. 

fatal disorder. My health, and consequently my spirits, have not been better for many years. 
Our situation is very comfortable (always saving its enormous expenses) and the Town is full of 
objects of intense interest — animate and inanimate. Remember me kindly to Mrs. Hoyt, and 
believe nie to be. Very truly, yours, M. VAN BUREN. 

McLane's Treasury Beport condemned — the Lords and Bishops, 
[No. 212.] C. C. Cambreleng, M. C, to Jesse Hoyt, New York. 

Washington, 29th Dec, 1831. — Dear Hoyt : I have yours with the papers. We have strange 
notions about such cases — I mean we Lawyers. What ihe committee may think about it, I don't 

]^now I will get along as well as I can with it, and hope for the best. It's lucky you sent a 

petition in a decent hand-writing, or I should never have known what you wanted. Ten years 
a"-o the case would have been rejected. I have hopes now, as we have reversed some of the old 
principles. 

The Treasury Reportt is as bad as it possibly can be — a new version of Alexander Hamil- 
ton's two reports on a National Bank and manufactures, and totally unsuited to this age of de- 
mocracy and reform. The battle on these grounds has not yet begun — it will go like wild- 
fire WHEN WE COMMENCE OrR WAR AGAINST THE LoRDS AND BiSHOPS. 

Sincerely yours, C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

The Friar's jump over the Ass — the Courier and Enquirer, 
[No. 213.] C. C. Cambreleng to J. Hoyt. Washington, 29th Dec, 1831.— Dear H. : 
I am quite amused with the new Bank convert.t the Courier and Enquirer — it reminds me of 
the Friar who was trying to mount an Ass. After jumping up two or three times without suc- 
cess, he put up a fervent prayer to the Virgin Mary — jumped again, and went entirely over to 
the other side — the Virgin was too kind. Sincerely yours, C. G. CAMBRELENG. 



The Debenture case — Lawyers' Justice, 
[No. 214.] C. C. Cambreleng, M. C, to Jesse Hoyt, N. Y. 

Washington, 3d January, 1832. — Dear H : 1 dare say you are surprised that there should 

be any doubt about I and McJ's c^ise — but you will cease to doubt when 1 tell you that for twen- 
ty years the debentures were foiinhed because the oath was not taken within the ten days I 
This was Lawyers' justice — but men of common sense took up the subject about five years ago, 
and reversed all the old decisions, and granted relief in all such cases for thirty years back. 
Yours is a new case, and I don't know wh;it queer notions the Lawyers may have about. I 
hope I shall get along with it. I may report a bill to-morrow morning, if I get the consent of 
our committee. If I get it from Smith when I go home, I will send you the $730. 

Sincerely yours. C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

[No. 215.] C. C. Cambreleng, to Jesse Hoyt. Washington 7, Jan., 1832. 

Dear H — I have your letter — all right — and will go right. Why does n^t Glover hand over 
the $2000 to Bucknor? I thought it was paid a month ago. I wish you would say to Mr. Cod- 
dington that Bucknor has not yet received one cent from Mr. Jackson— he talks of paying $175 
—but nothing was paid on the 5ih unless on that day. 

Sincerely yours, C. C. CAMBRELENG. 



Colonel Webb .tpurns Poor Devils xoho sell themselves fur Office — is independent of Jnckaon and 
the Regency — but the warmest friend of Jackson and Van Buren — A hint to Blair — liket 
Jesse — but away with Parasites ! 

[No. 216.] Colonel Jamf-s Watson Webb, to Jesse Hoyt, at Washington. 

Otfiee of the Courier and Enquirer, New York, Janu.iry 19th, 1S32. 
Dear Sir — Yours of the )6ih has just been received, and has been taken as it was meant; 
yet, permit me to add, it has not had any influence upon the course 1 intend to pursue. 

// my course hat disgusted every honest friend of the President, THAT IS, EVERY PoOR Devil 

WHO IS WILLI.VG to sell HIS INDEPENDENCE FOR AN OFFICE, V/hv 80 be it. 

You know, as you ought to know, that I am not to be driven from any course I consider cor- 
rect, even if th(! friends of General Jackson should attempt it, or profe.=sed friends of my own, 
write, or procurt- to be written, artichs in thf Gi.oee inierferinc between us and the Argcs. 

If, aa you say, my " friends are fast falling off" in Washington, and you havebftm made their 
confidant, please tell them that I do not valuR such frietiHshi|) a rush, and no matter what their 
etatioHB are, whether high or low, they are most welcome to pursue such a couree as to them 
seems proper. 

Thank God I am independent of Genrral Jackson, and those who would fain have the wodd 

» ny Louis M'l.Qiie, whu siicneeiled Mr. Inpli.Ttn ns Secretary, in Jn"e. 1831. 

t In o letter to llovt, Feb l.'tth, 1832, it is staled thnt n credit for 8.>0.00!1. ^r upwiirds. hud b««n piven to Mntrt. 
Wclib & Nouh, by tbc l'- S. Biink. oa n note nr notei drnwn by the furmer mid endorsed bv the latter. Uoythul 
very early Dutic« uf thit V. S. Bauk loan, and urg»d Cambrtltof to probe it in CoDcrMc, whicb ba did. 



WBBB ON VAN BUEEN — CAMBRELENa ON THE BANK. 281 

bcUeve they have the keeping of his conscience— and if I am not— if my daily bread for myself 
and family depended upon truckeZling to his friends— to the Argus and its coterie of would be 
great men, you should know enough of me to believe that I would d° ^\hai ^ "^""ff ' ^o"^^'- „ 

/ would Like to see an individual in the United S<«<e« rfe.>p^«<erf WHO is mqKE HON 
ESTLY and DISINTERESTEDLY ATTACHED TO VAN BUREN AND GENERAL 
JACKSON THAN MYSELF. . ,j u u t 

SUCH AN ONE CANNOT BE FOUND— and yet I am to be told, that because I presume 
to think for myself, and argue from appearaiices when facts are withheld, I ' disgust every honest 
friend of the President'- that my friends ' are fast falling off,' &c. &c. This is sheer nonsense, 
and I must say you are the last man from whom I expected such idle and ridiculous threats. 

In plain terms, those who are offended with our [Webb & Noah's] course, have only to get 
pleased in the way that is most convenient to them— aR<Z sol will tell them PERSONALLY witlnn 
ten days— and so you may tell them now if you please. Indeed, as you have been made the organ 
of communicating the ' disgust' I have inspired, and the ' falling off' of their friendship, it may 
be as well to show them this letter, which I would not have the slightest objection to publish in 
our columns. It contains my true sentiments, and you are at liberty to use it as you please. 

Yours has been BURNT. , , . j • v 

By way of news I can inform you, that we have not yet done with the Argus, and it may be 
as well for Mr. Blair to let us row our own boat. 

When we want his interference we will ask it — but until then, he had better not yield to the 
requests of those who would sacrifice all personal independence to party subserviency. 

Do not imagine me offended at ichat you have written. Not so. I appreciate your motive, 
and thank you for your kind intention, but I feel mortified to think you should know so little of 
my true character as to suppose that such a letter as yours could have any other effect than to 
make me despise more than I now do, THOSE WHOSE GOD IS OFFICE, and whose hide- 
pendence is the nod or heck of those in poicer. „<.^,,t ,irT.r,r, 

Sincerely your Friend, JAS. WATSON WEBB. 

The Workies, Cambreleng, and the friends of the Bank. 
[No. 217.] [Private.] C. C. Cambreleng to Jesse Hoyt, at New York. 
Washington, 5th Feb., 1832— Dear H. : I received to-day the memorial in favor of the Bank 
of the United States— it is signed by a host— said to be principally the friends of the Adminis- 
tration, but / have looked over the list. Our friends should be up and doing. This is forward- 
ed to our delegation in a letter signed by Gideon Lee, Mejgs D. Benjamin, Dudley Selden and 
William Neilson. It says the memorial originated with the supportere of the present admiuia- 
tration. Sincerely yours, C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

P. S. I presume it is signed by every merchant who keeps an account at the Bank. 

[No. 218.] [Private.] Washington, Feb. 6, 1832.— Dear H. : Get the Workies to be up 

and doing on the U. 3. B. question. They are democrats in principle. " 

^ Very truly yours, C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

Colond Webb, the Champion of Van Bnren and the United States Bank— his Card— Hoffman, 
Angel, Bergen, Soule. Clement, Poindexter — Monre. a dirty fellow — Would Croswell fight 
for Van Bnren ? — Webb would— Webb gets a new light, like the Compiler of this book. 

[No 219.] Col. .Tames Wnt^on Webb, to Jesse Hoyt, New York. 

City of Washivgton, Feb. 12. [1832.] Sunday Night.— Dear Hoyt : I HAVE AN ITCH- 

ING TO GET HOLD OF THE D D RASCALS THAT VOTED AGAINST VAN 

BUREN.t and you will perceive by MY ' CARD' that I have a prospect ahead. Hoffman, An- 

t In 1832 Col Webb, the friend of Marcv and the United States Bnnk, is rendv to spill his life's blood for Vnn 
Buren More thni. eleven venrs elapse, friends become enemies, and Webb thns desrribes bis old i.l. 1, m the 
Cour &■ Enq of Sept. 16, 1843. " United to the most implicit confidence \n the /rullzhihty of the people und the 
success of political mana-emcnt. Mr. Van Bitren unfortunately possesses great persona/ vnwty. He is vnin of 
his person vain of his dress and address, vnin of his influence with the Indies, vain of his aristocratic assocmtinns 
and his elevation above what he cnsiders the vulgar herd from which be sprnng— and above all, vain of his po- 
litical mana-^ement and his ability to obtain bv intrigue and finesse what others can only accomplish through 
great public s'ervices and an honest devotion to the welfare of the public. And this vanity, has been the cause of 
his political dftstrurtion. ..,.,„ ... , . j ■ , .,. 

We know Mr. V^an Rcren quite ns well as any other person m the United States. We understand precisely the 
extent of his gratitude for services rendered, and his appreciation of those who have literally made him what he is. 
We know precisely how fir he will go to court the friendship of those who have it in their power to serve him. and 
tjie cold blooded delilierntion with which he will give up thrse who have done more for him th;in he ever d.uld do 
for himself ifbv the sacrifice he supposes it possible to increase his political capital. We know because we have 
witnessed his utter heartlessness, his disgusting selfishness, and bis hahitiia! sneering at gratitude tor personal or po- 
litical favors We well understand bis theorv' that all mankind are selfish— that honor and magnanimity in men, 
but particularly in politicians, is the dream of voiith— and that he who would pmsper either in private or public 
life, must earlv arrive at the conclusion that frievds are only to be jned not cared lor. We know that from the day 
he took Aaron Bvkr as his model for bis manners, and made every movement ol his hands und body— every ex- 
pression of his face and everv intonation of his voice— conform as far as possble to those of his beau ideal. \\fi at the 
wa» time detsrmined to make his practice iii iil! the affairs of life conform in like manner to his great idoU 



232 WEBB, WITH HIS ARMOUR ON, 0:!lr FIGHTING DUELS FOR VAN BUREN^ 

gel, Bergen and Soule are the members whose names I'll give these fighting Senators ; but at 
the s^me time, I'll inform them that they are only responsible for the fact that Clement did make 
the communication to them which I mentioned. Consequently, IF THEY WISH A FIGHT ; 
or rather, if they do not wish to be the laughing stock of the nation, ONE OF THEM MUST 
CHALLENGE ME. Moore is a dirty fellow, and if I can, I'll get hold of Poindexter ; but as 
the saying is, ' half a loaf is better than no bread,' and I'll be content with cither. Your friend 
Croswell says that I'm an enemy to Van Buren. Quere.— WOULD (ETHE FIGHT FOR HUM ? 

By the bye, have you written to Lynn on the subject I mentioned ? 

Your friend, JA'S WATSON WEBB. 

P. S. Marcy, the President, and all his friends, think the people in Albany mad in talking 
of making V. B. [Van Buren] Governor, as if New York can make amends for an insult offered 
by fourteen States of the Union .' Marcy has written to them, and you should do so too. 

WEBB. 
Colonel Webb's Card, referred to above. 
A CARD. 
WashingtOxV City, Gadsby's Hotel, February II, 1832. 

In " A Card" published in the National Intelligencer and United States Telegraph this day, 
Gov. Poindexter of Mississippi, and Gov. Moore of Alabama — both members of the Senate of 
the United States — charge the Surveyor of the Port of New York, [M. M. Noah,] with writing 
the article which appeared in the editorial columns of the New York Courier and Enquirer on 
the 7ih inst., and of which the following is an extract : [Here tollovv3 the extract.] 

The undersigned does not deem it necessary to comment upon the undignified character of 
the " Card" of the Honorable Senators, but begs leave respectfully to assure them, that the en- 
tire article referred to, was written by him, and forwarded for publication from this city. The 
two material /acis alleged in that article, are — first, that the disclosures said to have been made 
by Mr. Van Buren to Clement, were, according to Clement's own admission, made at his first 
interview with Mr. Van Buren, which was purely accidental and never but once repeated, ^e- 
cond, that Clement had asserted that Gov. Poindexter and Gov. Moore offered to furnish him 
with funds for the establishment of a newspaper in the State of Mississippi. These two charges 
are now repeated — they are susceptible of proof at any moment, and for their truth, as well as 
for whatever opinions or sentiments are contained in the article alluded to, the undersigned 
holds himself personally responsible. He would further inform these honorable Senators, that 
the members of Congress from New .York referred to in the foregoing extract, do not seek con- 
cealment " behind" a " dark curtain," and that an application to the undersigned for their names, 
or for any other purpose, " will meet with the most prompt and respectful attention from" their 

Obedient servant, JAMES WATSON WEBB. 



Isaac Hill's Speech — how to make capital out of Clay's quarrel — Tibbcts' very good plan of a 

Bank — Who shall we make Governor? — Tariffs — taking care of the Mammoth. — Following 

the Bostonians for a new U. S. Bank. 

[Three letters, C. C. Cambreleng, to Jesse Hoyt at New York.] 
[No. 219] Washington, 12th Feb., 1832. 

Dear H. — Mr. Hill's speech will go all over the Union — that notices Clay's attack upon Mr. 
Gallatin in the best possible manner — it drives it hoine upon him. His quarrel, too, with Gen- 
eral Smith you will have seen — that ought to be noticed conspicuously. He is one of our revo- 
lutionary Heroes, upwards of 80 — one who gallantly defended what was then called Mud Fort 
on the Delaware, when attacked by a British squadron. 

With regard to the Bank it is not worth while to have any public meeting about — a remon- 
strance against it is enough — I don't think the debate will come up for a month — Mr. Tihhets 
sent me A VERY GOOD PLAN OF A BANK— which I have returned. Ask him to send me 
a copy of it. * Very sincerely yours, C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

* While this uniirincipled confederate of Van Buren, thus secrectly ncknowleiljiecl to Hoyf his desire for n United 
Stiites Hank, (see also his letter of the Ifith, with its artful hints) he thus [lublicly reprobated it, to pay court to the 
party who had grasped the puldic treasure as political and personal plunder: 

f Hxlracts from liis speech, in Congress, of .Ian. 14, 18;!4.j 

" Of all the currencies that were ever cmitrived by man, the most vicious in principle, the most calamitous in its 
effects upon trade, the most detrimental to the public interest, and the most unsafe, as it respects the preservation of u 
tnetallic currency, is that which \> founded on the credit of a national bank, nut only connected with the finances 
of a government, hut like ours, involved in all the fluctuations of every species of commercial credit and dealing 
in them upon u national scale." 

" It is a common o|iinion, too, that a national bank prevents tlie nurfliplication of Slate banks. It may he so, sir; 
but if it is. it is contrary to principle, and in this country and in r,nj;lnnd contradicted by experience. It is true that 
immediately upon a dissolution of a nutimial bank, there will lie, as the eenlleman from IV-iinsvlvania has shown, 
an unusual numlier of applications for Slutc institutions ; but in a long series of years, the tendency of a national 
bank note currency is more powerful than all our local circulations, in constantly impelling trade, banking, and 
every species of credit and speculation beyond those prudent limits, which, without the agency of such an institu- 
tion, would usually be jircscribed by the annual and steady accumulation of the capital of the country." 



ASK FOR A NEW NATIONAL BANK ! HOYT ^ NOAH HELPING BLAIR. 233 

TNo 220 ] Washington, Uth Feb., 1832. Dear II.-The knowing ones at Albany 

merely w'h J mancBuvre a Ut.le abou, the Governor to ,et^a c ..ge^ Tha ^as l^su^.ct. 
I have written VVrtght Edwards and F.gg-a .^ ^,^^ ^^,.^ |^ ^.^ 

THE Bank for 4 weeks-at east I should thiiik ".° • J J,^,";^,reme-Clav's on t'other. The 
shall become. McDuffie's, alias Calhoun s, Tariff, is °" "'^/^^"u" L,/,g,/-Ld school * 
Gentleman who wrote Mr. Mumford is not -[^f-^",^-"-'' °^ ^'^C. C CAMBRELENG. 

Washington, 16th Feb., 1832. 

[No. 2..1.] Clayton of Georgia has a resolution prepared and 

Dear H.-I return you ^^^^ '^"f-j-^^Jf J,^2 lect in view-I shall see the President to- 

will offer it as soon as he can-it vmU ^^7^ '"^^ °''J^" . „„t fe^, but what we shall take 

night-who has a cofdenUal director on he ^P^^- Yo^ REFLECT ON ihat U v,ould be well 

care of the Mammoth m some way or °^,h"-\f7„„"^^. , ^/, ';,,s.„^ Let them follow the 

forward a State bank next year-mennon '^|JJoJ^>-.J,bbets. ^ ^ cAMBRELENG. 
1 did not know before why that paper was so bitter against Van Buren. 

Ne-at YoKK, Saturday, 18th February, 1832. 
To £e^&^yt-M. M. Noah Sam.. Gonveru._r^^^^ 

I' ''Tif^lsTo ;Sro?:c?ort Tf i -tl^ batnJe Iif tVe'^aker is S652 50 cents, for which 
SnrclSlnce/lTgaiTfme. As I did not either cont.ct^^^^^^^^^ 

with Mr. Hoe, the maker of the Press, except my exertion >" ^°™f Z^^,,^ „,„, fj^f, ,^„ner 
paying them over, I shall of course ^<;'^'\.'^'' -I'lZtto j^^^^^^^^ P^'^^'' 

ought not to be ^bjected^to an ^"^--''^'^'^."'^^fj^J.l-i^fo Mr Blair, are in honor bound, 
;^^rr^:5^it;:^^on StTS;:^ ^Kf ]4est that you meet ^r the purpose, 
at the Bank Coffee House, on Tuesda^^ej^emng^at^J^o do^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ JACKSON.t 

He concluded bv savin.-- do not entail upon posterity the calamities of a national bank note currency, and lay 
^''^^^!^l:^:^:^:r; Adl^:ir"tC^i^^^^unt of Tibbets's " v.KV ooor> PL., o. . bx.k," which 
Canihrelenssecretly desired and puMiclydenouiv^ed. signed bv " Eusha Tibbets, for him- 

" Splendid Bank Project.-We observe an "dvertisement in the papers ineay ^^ .^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^_ 

self and Associates," giv.n, notice oi^ an «PP -f;'"" ^" ';^,^;,'^^, ^ ^W, e^^^^^^^ known by the name of the 

.ion, for a bank with a capital of thirty five millions to be '"J^^'' '" ";^ ' / f „<,op,ed, save Congress the trouble 
" Nationd Union Bank." As the f\*" - ;;'^^^^^^"4^^;;; ""e'enti /an in'^.'itution t'o which there are no constitu- 
;^:r;robfS " w^SnrLt o^r^^ with the project. It will be seen that it runs on all 

'^X:;^l::<^a:;^Hs:^ta^:^rthetermination^ 

five years. Sfconrf-Branches shall be estabhshed •".f;^'^'>,^*ff°.,^^"^rde stock Third-AW notes forcircula- 
and he citizens of such State shall be exclnsiveb' entitled '"J*^ "^^i,[°'f^'^^;'°^rhev a^rnottoe^ the amonnt 
tion shall be issued bv the Mother Bank at New York, and made pavalJle l^ere. ^ ""^^ " , government on the 

of capital. Fourth-The Bank is to collect and transmit the '"";?^V "f^^^^lf ^^^.^.^^e^rdepositf, on condition that 
"equis'ition of the Secretary of the ^^^--V- ""f » '"J, ,^[:. g^^ef ^ft-TheXL^ of .bis Bank is to he lia- 
the notes of the Bank be received in payments to /'^^.^'^'^V^f The States which shall authorize branches may 
5LVoVerd^o^^e^fmt:ntb7ee?elr^;no^!c: ^ndTl^fthortj^t ,^^^o\'her Bank to make an arrangement with 
the State Banks for transacting the business of the United States. 

* See No 93 na^e 18'2, Dr. Joel B. Sutherland. i , i t »™»oi» 

t ^i^^S:; chief be,,ar for Blair, and one of Van BurenN^reedy sr^ilsmen ^I^^^^^^^^Z^:^ 

,n his Plaindealer, .Ian. 1^7.-'; There is at this vejv moment, a str.l^ngp^^ ^^^ ^,^ ,^^ ^j,^. 

eaters standing at the counter of the Albany manufacturers of the JL"'?. ; '"' 'l^;;, "^.^o ^„, long been in the habit 

Lee. and thlloud-mouthed Daniel Jackson-of the monopoly clique of « hich the limes uu e 

Daniel had declared peremptorily, " We must and will have a national bank. 



iSi ROOT, PISH, SUTHERLAND; WEBB's PRIVATE LETTERS; THE BANK. 

Cambreleng to Hoyt on Fish, Root, Angel and the Bank. 

[No. 223.] Washington, 14th March, 1832. Dear H.— You ought not to appoint any 

representative in Congress. We shall be in the midst of Tariff, Bank, &c., and can't go— take 

good, honest, and staunch men — send such men as Mr. [Preserved] Fish. Our Friend S 

whose letter you read when here, is in a great fidget because he did not see his memorial iii 
favor of the Bank of the U. S. announced in the paper. I had that important event regularly 
announced! Root will not trouble us much longer. Angel [of N. Y.] hammered him with- 
out gloves — he had nobody to defend him but an anti-mas(jn. 

Sincerely yours, C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

To Hoyt on Webb and Noah's "sincere attachment to the cause of Mr. Van Buren" they put 

forward a bad candidate— Root goes for the pewter mug— Wickliffe and Daniels, enemies of 
Jackson — the Bank. 

[No. 224.] Private. Washington, 15th March, 1832. 

Dear H. — 1 never doubted the sincere attachment of the Editors of the Courier and Enquirer 
to the cause of Mr. Van Buren, the President and our party generally — but the course they pur- 
sue in relaiion to General Root, is calculdted to injure the cause of the administration. I care 
not for the quarrel with the Argus — or who may be our nest Governor — that matter will be no 
doubt amicably adjusted — but 1 do care about putting forwurd a ctindidate who is as much 
opposed to this administration as Joel B. Sutherland t and his votes will prove it, as they have 
done already. He and Pitcher vote un.formly witli the opp^isiiion — and Root yesterday denounced 
Tammany Hall, and went openly for the Pewter Mug. Another course is pursued which they 
will find in the end will be highly injurious to the President— that is, pressing the Bank bill upon 
him at this sesshm with a moral certainty that if it reaches him the obligation of public duty 
will compel him to return it — as entirely premature — four years before the charter expires. The 
charter of the Bank of England expires next year and naa not yet been renewed — the charter of 
the East India Company was not renewed till one year before it expired— three-fourths of the 
President's friends are opposed to the Bank — and he can never under such circumstances, do 
otherwise than to send the bill back — if he had no other motive, the adjustment uf the tariff and 
the extinguishment of the public debt — both occurring before the charier expires— are alone suf- 
ficient. It is the enemies of the President, such as Branch, Wickliffe, Daniel, &c., &.C., united 
With the friends of the Bank, who are determined to send this bill to him, expecting to do him an 
injury, and kill the bank too — which its friends are certainly doing by presnng it now. 

Sincerely yours, C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

Lessons on the proper use of Confidential Letters on Politics. 

[No. 225.] Mr. Cambreleng's views of the sanctity of confidential correspondence, may be 
readily inferred from the contents of the following letter, marked " private," addressed to his 
friend, Mr. Jesse Hoyt, at New York, frotn Washington, and dated May 19th, 1832. 

" Dear H : I have seen a copy of W 's PRIVA I'E letter to Clayton. It is a de- 
liberate BUT CONFIDENTIAL attack on me, and was designed to coax the Judge to favor 
him, which was of course repelled. W — asked to have the letter returned — it was so — but what 
W—does not know— the Judge took a copy of it. IT'S A ROD IN PICKLE, and will ex- 
pose some small contradictions of his present statements, and show some little duplicity. The 
Judge can tell him that he found my statement of the Webb and Noah case too moderate, and 
that he wrote it over himself. Don't mention about the letter to Clayton— Ac will probably pub. 
lish it. The Bank will come up in the Senate next week— it won't disturb us before the middle 
of-fune. Sincerely yours, C. C. CAMBRELENG." 

Frivate Arrangements for Nominating a Party Governor, four months before a Convention of 

the People teas called. 
[No. 226.] Senator Marcy to Jesse Hoyt at New York. — Washington, Senate Chamber, 
May 26, 1832. — My Dear Sir: I have received your several letters, and feel much obliged to 
you for the interest you have taken in the matter. Our friends from Albany are here now, and 
I am to have a lull conversation with some of them on the matter to which our correspondence 
relates. I have no doubt they have cooled a git-at deal since they left home. I will give you 
shortly the result of our interview, which will take place to-morrow. J 

Yours sincerely, W. L. MARCY 

t See Sonne particulars about the roiloiihtnlile Dr. Sntherlonil in No. 9:t of (his correspondence. 

t Colonel Voiing. who wn» for Ilenrv Chiy in 1824. presided nt llie Flerkinier Convention, which~nominatea 
Mnrcy lis Covornor, 8c|)t. 19, 1832. Who did tlio Colonel support for the Presidency in 18-28 ? In 1830 he wrote 
u poinphlet to prove that state hunk chiirtprs are constiilional, and a national bank charter not so; next bought 
the stock uf stute hanks on speculation, and ihus became onceinorean active confederate of Van Buren. One great 
difficulty III the way of a •uccei'sful Democratic government is iMipro|>er i^ystemi of nominations. I am pr«- 
jwred to prove that even that of England u much more Democratic than ours. 



THE MYSTERY OF MANUFACTURING A BEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR. 235 

How the Party Press prepares the Party to nominate a Candidate who 1ms settled certain quea, 
tions with the Party Leadtrs and Trading Politiciuns. 
[No 227] Senator Marcy to Jesse H-yt, at N. Y.— Washington, 3d June, [1832,] 

My Dear Sir : I have been shamefully negligent of my promise to \ou in relation to the re. 
suit of the interview with my Albany friends. 1 hoped to be able to convince them that it was 
right and proper for me to adhere to the determination which I had communicaieo to Cr swell; 
but 1 failed in dome so. They convinced me that there were more difficulties atiendmg the se- 
lection of a proper candidate than had presented themselves to n.e. The result was that I nm 
not to persist in declining now, but nm to be let alui.e it it can be done-as I ihiuk it may with, 
out injury to the party .t It would seem to imply (il it cannot be) that I am a mighty consequen- 
tial fellow You or any body else may think so if you will, but 1 do not. , , , , 

Webb has not modified and publis/ied yovr articles. So long time has now elapsed, and the 
fever of ihose who called for n,e t.. come out has so much subsided, that probably nothing more 
will he said by him. How stand affairs in N. Y.? 

There is a crre a effort making we learn by the manufacturing interest to get up an excitempnt 
on the 'l-aritf— our friends from Albany and elsewhere thought it «ould not "ucceed^ ^ Bodies of 
manufactunrs are Hocking in here, and they appe;.r about AS CRaZY A3 1 Hr. N I. LLl- 
Fi£KS— I think the extremes will unite and deleat all attempts at cnnipromise. 

Yours, &c. W. L. MARCY. 



No 228] Senator Marcy to Jesse H..yt, at New York.— Washington, Saturday, 
ri832 1 'The date, signature, and a few wor.fs of the conclusion, torn off.)— Dear Sir : 1 have 
this morning received a note from Webb, and I le.ru from the tenor of it that you had written 
to hitn on the subject which engaged us in two or three conveisations. I find that our npiuiona 
of him were perfectly correct. Attacked as he is on all sides he is willing to attend to others as 
well as himself 1 find my intimation to you is well founded that Bennett hnd been too sanguine 
in the matter referred to and had understood from n.e more than 1 intended to convey. W. bb 
has undoubtedly every disposition to put things right and he ought to b. permitted to do so to a 
certain extent in his own way-I have had tull conversations with you and from them you can 
make to him such suggestions as will apprise him of my views.* He may thinli I ought to wnte 

*r. 1 1 tv»i,K romork, nn fhp«e letters that " bein» the friend of W. L. Marcy, and entertaining the most 

haU nev^be^n mt^nutted'dtLugh the Arg^^ h>m for dunng w.th us immediately alter las election 

'"u^ett joined Croswell in denouncing Marcy for dining with Webb. I copy his remarks from the Plaindealer, 
vol:^''. pagi 450, June .7, ^^^'^l^l^^^^^^'t^^^l^^^tT^ll^-^C^^^^J^'^^^^^ Webb-s influenc;. as 
«.';„''r'„T[he r rE 1 andTh leThe ne vlpa^e^ we^ st.U r,n.,ng w.,h ^he story, it^as duly chronicled that Oov- 

trt'hen unwonhy measure" we surveyTm'wiih-'contempt, and can offer no better excuse for his conduct than that 
♦his poverty and not his will consents.'" . , ,. , 

16 months-afier which ^e 'I'lvocuted a mod.hed rech^^^^^^^ S. Bank, of §15.000. for Noah, Webb, or some 

banks whicti were siru„x""o ■" „j.,';.„,„ ,i,e Safety Fund, the Depos tes, and no re-charter— and if so, Webb, 
scribers a large sum l° =°".^ ""%\° ^^^^"'^"'fd' „„, ha^^ been very strong on the other tack, fur the above letter, 
as an advocate, chose bis side. Marcy c"" ^. ""1,^^^^,^^" fjl of that year James Gordon Bennett, who was, 
S^^'^tli^^SngtrcoCp^ottt rf\rbraViN^:rV^'s^!r;!l^ his ^e.^.., (Sept. .0. 1845,, the fol- 

ouir^ Sy'"g hVco^fidence°of the ^art,; and all concerned, and corresponding with that journal. Mr-^ Marcy 

" ^=n ,, mpmher of the Senate I had frequent personal intercourse with him on politic» alone. * " 

was then a member ot tne benaie. i "-^ 1 i ^ j ^ f conversation, one day, during a 

During 'h-^;--" ^"^,\Vn,rto ;hic1 h^^ the Senator had sometinng heavy on his 

walk "P P^"".^>';^,",^/Vo S^' ^i,\"e I d scovered that the heavy business on the heart of the Senator was a desire 
mind which he wished to dsclose. 1 Enquirer as a candidate for the gubernatorial chair of New 

to be brought forth in ';\«,<=°'""'"/°i' '"^,7" ,,!;," ,„ |,e held in Herkimer in the fall. We discussed the matter 
York in -"ticipat.on oftheC ntiono the P^^ „,ovement for the Courier and En- 

m all Its «^P«f^f"'^;;VtCf lend Webb to take up, as he was in rather an awkward predicament in relation 
«"',r' rtJ'^owttoutofUe X $.52,000 affair of the L'uited States Bank, which had been 

to the party, g,^;^ "? f"'/' ';Ve en" [n this view of the case. I conimenced a series ol private letters addressed 
^'\V° wlhh statin, a ! tL v^^^ ol'l he Marcv's opinions_tl,e position of Webb himself, and the adm.- 

to Mr. Webb, staling all j'^e v.e«s oi ine ca Enouirer to chenkmate the Jlrgus and ' the regency' on 

[heL%wrgrnd' ^ht^l^t^rrc^'rllafnld^'^aTi^Ty'Lrth'^^i^ws communicated to me L thatspecial purpose b. 



II 



236 WEBB, BENNETT, NATIVEISM, VAN BDREN AND HOYT. 

to him — and so I should perhaps — but I have two reasons for not doing so — the one is that if I 
should go over the whole matter as I did with you in conversation it would make a prodigiously 
long letter, and I am loo much engaged to afford the time to write it, but the second is I have 
declined to write to all Editors on the subject (except one [Croswell ? ] which I explained to you.) 
This resolution was early taken to preserve my position — to keep silent. He will appreciate my 
motives and 1 hope approve of the course. 

Col. Webb's notions about Private Letters. 
[No. 229.] James Monroe, .Esq., to Jesse Hoyt, Wall street, N. Y. 
Bloomingdale, August 9, 1832. — Dear Hoyt : * * * I enclose you a letter received from our 
friend Gait. You will see that it contains the last accounts from the Army. You may, if you 
think proper, give the facts therein contained to some Editor, but not to publish the let- 

ter, as Webb did mine the other day, much to my annoyance I had written a letter to Gouv- 
erneur and given certain facts, and he sent my letter to Webb to take the facts — and he pub- 
lished most of the letter — and you have seen it, you may judge it was not written for pub. 
lication. * * * * How is Bremner 1 Yours truly, J. MONROE. 

'Deadly hostility' of the Van Buren native faction to our brethren from other lands — How 
long Bennett would stand up for Van Buren — Col. Webb — Bennett suspected — ,^200 in the 
Big Gun. 

[No. 230.] James Gordon Bennett to J. Hoyt, N. York. — Philadelphia, 16th August, 
1832. t — Dear Hoyt : Your letter amuses me. The only point of consequence is that conveying 
the refusal. This is the best evidence of the deadly hostility lohich you all have entertained 
towards me. It explains, too, the course of the Standard and Post, in their aggressions upon me 
ever since I came to Philadelphia. The name for such a feeling in the breasts of those I have 
only served and aided at my own cost and my own sacrifice, puzzles me beyond example. I can 
account for it in no other way than the simple fact that I happen to have been boj-n in another 
country. I must put up with it as well as 1 can. As to your doubts and surmises about my fu- 
ture course, rest perfectly easy — / shall never abandon my party or my friends. I'll go to the 
bottom sooner. The assaults of the Post and Standard, I shall put down like the grass that 
grows. I shall carry the wnr into Africa, and " curst be he who cries hold, enough." Neither 
Mr. Van Buren and the Argus nor any of their true friends, will or can have any fellow feeling 
with the men — the stockjobbers — who, for the last two years have been trying to destroy my 
character and reputation. I know Mr. Van Buren better — and I loill stand if> in his defence, 
AS LONG AS HE FEELS FRIENDLY TO ME. I will endeavour to do the best I can to 
get along. 1 will go among my personal friends who are unshackled as to politics or banks, and 
who will leave me free to act as a man of honor and principle. So my dear Hoyt, do not lose 

Senator Marcy himself. I deny that T had understood and communicated more to Mr. Webb than Marcy intended to 
convey. Indeed, almust everyday, or every other day at that time. Senator Marcy used to meet me in the capitol, and 
at his own room, and there he would disclose to me all the inturmation which he had received from the regency 
cam|), at Albany, in order that I mi;;ht be enabled to apprise Mr. Webb of the facts, and (jnalify him to complete 
the checkmate which we intended to give them. In all this bnsiness. Senator Marcy wished to stand still between 
the two contending cliques, while I was to work the wires in Washington, and Mr. Webb was to lire off" the big 
gun in New York. Senator Marcv and I in Washington, used to laugh and chuckle most amusingly over the 
movements by which, through the Courier and F.nquirer, we accomplished ultimately his nomination — checkmated 
his personal foes at Albany — and elected him trium|)hantly Governor of this State fur the first time. Before the 
summer was over, however, Mr. Webb bolted from the democratic party on the United Stales Bank question. and came 
out against the re-election of (Jeneral Jackson, including also the election of the very man, William L. Marcy, 
whom he had so much contributed to bring before the public. I stuck to the movement, and left the Courier and 
Enquirer on account of this bolting." 

t Mr. Bennett republished this letter in the N. Y. Herald, but dated it a year later (1833,) and tried to explain 
that the $iUO in sjiecie was not a bribe from the Tammany Hunkers for attacking the U. S Bank, by referring to a 
letter ol llojt's written twelve months alter, about $200,000. The explanation is lame, clumsy, and built on a false 
foundation. The following extract from a letter of Hovt to Bennett, in August, 1833, will show that Van Buren 
and his men believed that Bennett, like Webb and Noah, was retained against their j)luusible plunder scheme; but 
1 see no evidence of it. 

" You have heard me talk to Webb, by the hour [says Hoyt] of the folly of his being on the face of the record a 
friend of Mr. Van Buren's, and at the s' me time attacking HIS MDST FIRM AM) CONSlSTE.\T KRIEM) ; 
viz. the editor of the Jirjrua ; anil you stand in almost the same attitude, and there are many here who believe that 
your friendshi, will end a^ Sir. Webb's has. I will do you the justice to say that 1 believe no such thing, butai the 
same tune I w ' e.\ercise the frankness to say, that the course of your ))aper lays you open to the suspicion, i know 
enough o( aiVai. to know that you had higfi authority for the grounuyou have taken on thedeposite question, and 
1 thought you im. aged the subject well for the meridian yon arc in. I was told by a person a day or two since, that 
y«ju wiiuld be aide from another quarter; I could not learn how. Hut you ought not to expect my friend at the 
north to do any thing, not that he hus an inilisposition to do what is right, or that he would not serve a friend, but 
}ie is in llie altitude that requires the most fastidious reserve. The people arc jealous of the public press, and the 
moment it is atlein|.teil to be controlled, its iisefuhiess is not only destroyed, but he who would gain public favor 
through lis columns is quite sure to fail. I am satisfied the press has lust some |iorlion o< its hold upon public con- 
fidence ; recent develi)penieiits have had a lendency to satisly the people, that its conductors, or many of them, at 
l«a^l, are as negotiable as u promissory iio.'c. This impression can only be removed by a firm adherenca to 
|irinciplu in adversity as well as prosjierity, ; can, my dear sir, only aay, us 1 have before suid tu you, be patient, 
* luvD lUttui who pumecule yuu.' '' 



f 



LOBBYIXG, DESPONDING, ELECTIONEKRING, BRIBING AND BARGAINING. 237 

our sleep on ray account. I am certain of your friendship whatever the others may say or do. 
. fear nothing in the shape of man, devil, or newspaper ; 1 can row my own boat, and if the Post 
and Standard don't get out of my way, they must sink me— that is all. If I adhere to the same 
principle.'^ and run hereafter as I have done heretofore, and which I mean to do, recollect it is 
not so mich that " I love my persecutors" as that / regard vuj own hanar and reputation. 
Your lighting up poor Webb like a fat tallow candle at one end, and holding him out as a 
beacon-light to frighten me, onlv makes me smile. Webb is a gentleman in private life, a good 
hearted fellow, honorable in all his priv^ate transactions as I have found him, but in politics and 
newspapers a perf:ct child — a boy. You will never find the Pennsylvanian going the career of 
the C. & E. That suspicion answers as a good excuse to those who have resolved before hand 
to do me all the injury they can, but it will answer for nothing else. I am, Dear Hoyt, 

Yours truly, J. G. B. 

P. S. The S200 in Specie TUput into my big Chm and give the U. S. Dank and Stockjobbers 
abroadside. I wish you would let me know any other U. S. Bank movement in your city. 
This is the Battle ground of Bank contest— here is the field of Waterloo. New York now is 
only the Pyrren/es. 



Hoyt on Congressional Lobbying, at Washington, 

[No. 231.] Lorenzo Hoyt to Jesse, his brother, in New York. 

Albany, Sept. 10, 1832, Sunday.— I should be very much pleased to accompany j'ou to 
Washington this month ; but as I shall not be able to go more than once, I believe I shall wait 
till winter, or early in the spring Perhaps I shall have a case o/ CONGRESSIONAL LOB- 
BYING, by which I can make it a jaunt of pleasure and profit. 



Marcy desponding — is terrified at the effects of bank dollars — bids Hoyt meet the BankwUh Demo- 
cratic Dollars if he can. 

Two letter.s— William S. Marcy to J. Hon, New York. 
[No. 232.] Private. Albany, 1 Oct. 1832.- My Dear StR : I did not receive your letter 
of Thursday till last evening. I hasten to reply to it — though ihe answer will give you no plea- 
sure. I think our chance of success doubtful. Although others are full of courage, I am not. 
I have looked critically over the State, and have come to the conclusion that probably we shall be 
beat. I would not say this to you v.^ere I not perfectly confident that it will remain a profo^ind 
secret. All reports from New York are that we sliall do better than you represent : yet I have 
distrusted them. Tlie U. S. Bank is in the field, and I cannot but fear the effect of 50 or 100 
thousand dollars expended in conducting the election in such a city as New York. I have great 
confidence in the honesty of the people, but it will notwithstand all temptations. Thecorruption 
OF SOME LEAD.S TO THE DECEPTION' OF MAVY. You ouglit to look to the Upper Wards. I fear 
you will find defections among the active electioneerers Though I speak so discouragingly of 
the result, I do not doubt if money could be kept out of use, we should beat them. But it will 
not. Yet great efforts without money may save us. I hope these efforts will be made in New 
York. If I thought that N. Y. would do as others say it will, I should say the chance is in our 
favor, but I feared .such a result as you predict. My advice i.s — donH Bet YOUR MONEY, 
BUT SPEND IT, as far as you legally can, to promote the election. We are all determin- 
ed to deserve success, and do not despair of getting it. Yours sincerely, W. L, MARCY. 



Van Buren canvassing' the infected district — the factions in Washington Co. split up — a Coali- 
tion or bargain in Westchester — Matthew L. Davis calculates the votes. 
[No. 233.] Albany, 4th Oct., 1832. My Dear Sir : Yours of yesterday is received. 
Before it came to hand I had determined to write you in order to relieve the gloom which my 
former letter was calculated to cast over vour mind. Information received since WTiting to you 
has considerably raised .ray hopes. V. Buren wiites from the infected District that we shall 
gain there as much as we can lose in the other parts of the State. That Ave shall gain (speaking 
with reference to the last Governor's election) I do not doubt — but the extent of that gain cannot 
be conjectured. I think it will be 3000 in the 8th District— and about 2000 in the 6th. Our 
recent news from Washington County is very flattering. The FACTIONS there do not coaksce. 
There is a reasonable hope that we "shall be better off by 1000 votes than has been calculated. 
The proceedings in Westchester have dissipated the gloom that hung over that county. We 
understand that both the Ward and Hunter parties will support our Electoral Ticket and State 
candidate. The charter election here has nerved our friends and inspired a determination to 
meet efforrs by efforts. Upon the whole our affairs look prettv weW, and success is in our ovrti 
hands, but we must labor to keep it. I fear more for you in N. Y. than any other place. Your 
vigilance and vigorous efforts can alone save you from a disappointment. Davis's calculadott 
in yesterday's C. & En. is, in many particulars, very wild. I have run over that calculation and 
made a note of deductions and a'dditions which I think may be reasonably depended on by 



238 makcy's advice taken, general \\'AED reports psogress. 

which I v.uv the results. About 20,000 a pretty material variation. I do not wi«h it ex- 
hibued. Indeed i believe it is rather an idle employment to be making estimatts^^ The beat 
rule is to du the work and see the result. I am, with great respect, yours, W. L. MAKOY. 

Stotirtwout, Iloyt ^ Co. helping the Daily Sentinel and the Tvvih Teller, N. Y. 

[No 235 ] The following is one way in which party managers assessed them-elves in obe- 
dience to Governor M>ircy's later of Oct. 1, to carry tne tlecti.m in New York by the tise ot 
m..ney in 1832. Theirs is a perfectly fa>r mode. They p.id friendly edit ts tor ciicul»ung 
pnnrrs containing opuiions favorahle to their vicw.s, said editors havmg previously been with tliem, 
uii'd not iiavi.ig apo-tatized f..r a considerMti.pn ! i ■ • 

" We the uridc-rsi'Mied agree to pay the sums set opposite our names, towards giving a more 
extei.ded circula.ion to the Paily .Sen.inel, and ,he 'Truth Tell, r.' Oct. fi 1832.-J. Hoyt 
$2U-Tibl.eis S2U— S. Swartwout $-2()— Thad's Phelps $!>0— C. VV. L. [Lawrence $20— 
J. C. S2a-P. Fish $20-S. S^O-C. C. CambreUng S'-^O-C L. Livingston S^^-J- A. 
Hamilton $20-C. P. White $20-^. Hone $20— .\L Van Schaick $20-D. Jackson $20— 
J. L C .ddington ^20— Auchincloss $20, &c." 

[Editors when po r should take all 'he cash they can got from men of all parties, but continue 
to speak independently or not at all. When I puhli.hed ihe G^izette ar Rochester, :.nd the bx- 
aniu.er at New York, no man w.ih more wi ing lo receive and thankfully ackn^.wledge, pecu. 
iiictry aid from whi,:, deniocr,.t, native, loyalist, and conservative— and, lo the hest -f mv recol- 
lection, I got Jonati ins from them all. If .Utackinsr a fortress and scarce of powder would It 
be wise in the besiegi.,g officer to reiu-<e the iiifi of one or a hundred barrels !] 

Westchtster politics— the Youns. wen started— Ami- n to a union with Hunter— the Bank 

hngnboo—help ns to $300— IFu/rf electioneers for Ward day and mghu 

[No 235 ] General A .ron Ward, M. C, to .lesae Hoyt. N. Y. 

SiNO Si.NG, Oct. 12, ld32.— Mv Dear Sir: Your letter of the Uih inst. ha? been received, 

and in reply, I have to say that every honorable e.'Certi m wdl be made by our p irty to carry the 

election in the C^-unty. 1 did n .t e.Kpeci the nomination this year, bnl my friend.', considered 

that mere w.-.s no oiher way of securing our election, and the Hutiier men said they would nnt 

go for Mr. Kemble because he was [inv] friend. Our opponents, beyond all doubt, w.nld h .ve 

carried a large majority ugainst us. But I have very many personal friends whn will make use 

of their bust endeavors to carry my election, of this I «m assured ; and you knnw th:it no man m 

the county can calculate with inne certainty, as regard.-^ ihe election, than I c^n. Our Pariy '" 

this county [Westchester] has but a small majority. When Van Buren ran we got but 1.50 

majority and we only tiot 80 majority for an elector when Jackson was ele<ted— Lut I think i 

can now promise you at least 1000 majority. We have started the young men— they ore now 

actively engaged— and they will hold a meeting upon my recommendation on Tuesday— and they 

will present us with ont candidate for the Assembly. This will bring them out in their Ktrength. 

We shall give our ticket 400 majority in this town. \Vhen I wa- last up 1 received 52.i, the 

lartiest majoriiy given in any other Town in the State. As regards a union with our 

Hunter friends, I sav with all my heart, A:nen to it— my friends have always been in favor of 

it The Young Men's meeting will do much to bring it about. It ihey come m they will ngree 

to give me their support, for they know that there was not a firmer friend of the Administration 

in Congress than I vvas. ,,,.101 

I fear THK BANK influence more than anything else. I have no douh^ that the liank 

Mana.rers will expend a large sum of money in this county. If our friends in town could help iis, 

at thi.- particular crisis, to about THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS, ice will wake g'md u'<eofit 

We have but few men who are able to help us t.) means. You must supply us with 10,000 

tickets at least— vou can have tliem stereotyped. Send them to me by some safe hand, and 1 

will see them distributed in every town. I have not rested a moment since the contest com- 

menced. and if my liealth and life is spared 1 shall devote all my time to it. I have been twice 

about the comity, and our prospects are cheering. I have met with friends where 1 least 

expected them, and strong friends too. I wish yon to look into the act. and see whether Oon- 

gress and Electors go on one ticket. Look well into this. From the last act 1 should think not. 

^ Truly, A. WARD. 

Jes9e'8 help thanlfully achmoled gal-Ward will meet the hank in iis own coin-has s^pent^ 
much mnnnj-a Bank agent-an office for a friend is a debt to be paid-every man has 
his pricr-srcret service- Ward ready to expose rogues on t'other side, OTackenzie fashion.) 

expecta to turn a 1400 majority. 

[No 936 ] The same to the same, 

Siriu Sing, Oct. 29, 1832.— My Dear Friend : I return yon many thanks lor yonr kind letter— 

and for the assurance you have given me that I shall have aid from your good city, if not bctore. 



Ward and the bank, hill's bets, and makcy's breeches. 239 

certainly after the close of the election. As you concluded by requesting me to go on in the 
good wurk, I have to say in reply, that I will go on ; and I doubt much v/hether there is a single 
individual in the State, that is, or that has been more active in promoting the cause than my- 
self. 1 do not allow myself to sleep half as much as heretofore. I am either writing letters or riding 
about the county half the night as long as I can find a man stirring with whom I can converse. 
As THE BANK has its agents here, it has become necessary for me TO MEET IT IN THE 
SAME COIN* — and I have been constrained in self-defence to expend a great deal of money — 
much more than I can afford — and I shall be obliged still to expend more. I am not in a situ- 
ation to bear the whole expense of the flection, and yet all the expenses come upon my shoulders 
— and as matters now stand, it loill not do for me to stop to inquire the costs. 

The last evening Major Sing and myself had a conversation with one of those [U. S. Bank] 
agents, and he informed us that he did not, as regards himself, care a single pin how the election 
went — but he said, every man had his price, nnd he had his — and he had received money from 
some gentlemen in New York, but befwe it was put in his hands he took an oath not to tell the 
name of the men from whom he received it. If I can find out the name of the man who holds 
the purse strings in this County, his name shall be brought before the piiblic be it w/iom it 
may. 

It seems that you turn all your attention to Long Island. Allow me to tell you that this is 
one of the most important counties in the state. Recollect, the majority against us last year was 
1400 — and we are now engaged in endeavoring to carry a majority for our entire ticket — and 
I sincerely believe that we shall give you a good account of this democratict county. 1 rely 
upon your giving me some aid hereafter, and will go on in the good work most cheerfully. I 
shall have the returns of this and Putnam Counties an the 8th — and will come to New York 
with them in person, if I am not worn down by my labors. 

In haste, I am, truly, A. WARD. 

Governor Hill of New Hampshire, like his friend Wright at Albany, may have denounced 
betting on elections, in his public messages, but he did not do so in his private ones. For exam- 
ple ; — 
[No. 237.] CoNCOKD, N. H. Oct. 15, 1832. [Franked, Concord, Oct.18— ." Isaac Hill, S. U. S."] 

To .Tfsse Hoyt — My dear Sir — Yours of the 12th was last evening received. TO MEET 
THE BRAGGARTS OF THE OPPOSITION I ADVISE MY FRIENDS THAT ANY 
SU.M WILL BE SAFE ON THE ELECTORAL VOTE OF Pennsylvania and New York. 
In this State we are so strong, that should every other desert hirn, we may be relied on as giving 
a decisive majority for Andrew Jackson. Yet the Bank is scattering its thousands here to affect 
us. I am. Sir, respectfully, Your friend and obedient Serv't, ISAAC HILL. 



The Valiant Warrior, Marcy, on his Bravery and his Breeches — The Barber's Bill Frauds 

and Peculations. 
[No. 238.] Senator Marcy to Jesse Hoyt, New York. Albany, IGth Oct., 1832. 

[Private.] My Dear Sir— Your letter of Monday evening I received this morning, and with 
it a breeze from the South, that gives some of our folks a chill. The opposition pretend to have 
certain informiitiof. that Ritner is elected. Thoush we do not yet yield to this belief, still we are 
less confident than we were yesterday of Wolfs Election. As to the Pantaloons affair, perhaps 
1 am not the person best qualified to advise. Though the charge was right in itself, yet it must 
be regarded as an unfortunate one, because so easily turned into ridicule. I showed your pro- 
duction to Fliigg — he thought it very well, but seemed to think it was a little too formal. The 
enemy will have their laugh, but I hope it will not do much mischief. The true explanation issim- 
ply this — When Comptroller. I had always made war on linnping charges, because I was satisfied 
many frauds against the State had been perpetrated by them. The law provided the payment 
of the Judge's expences in holding the Special Circuit. I kep_t a particular account of them 
which was handed to the Comptroller. While on this business'some work was done on Panta- 
loons, for which the Tailor charged Fifty cents ; it was entered on the account, and went into 
the Comptroller's hands without a particular reflection how it would appear in print. 1 feared 
no danger for I knew no sin. lean not advise how it is best to treat the subject. The article 

* Aaron Ward, M. C, to Gen. Samuel Swnrtwout, 110 Chambers st.— City Hotel [N. Y.J Nov. 27. 1834. 
— My Dear General, I called at yonr house this evening, vvith a personal friend Mr. Devean, in order to make youi 
acquainted with hiin. He is a gentleman of sterling: worth nnd intef;nty, and he is desirous of getting the situation 
of Inspector. I know how you are pressed, but IN THIS INSTANCE I feel a deep interest, IN FACT I AM IN 
EARNEST; and if you will oblige me by g-ivins: him the situation, I will in return do you a service at some fu- 
ture day which sliall more than requite you. Do not say no, if it is now convenient. Do, I entreat you bear his 
case in your remembrance. I am truly, A.WARD. 

t Westchester County was one of the very few which gave a majority of votes, in November, 1845, aeainst al- 
lowing the jieople of New York State to meet in Convention, in 1846, for the revision and improvement of the 



240 MARCY's war services. EITCHIE on WEBB. INGHAM ON CLAY. 

in the Argus, headed, ' A very grave affair, 't is perhaps as full an explanation as the transac- 
tion will admit of. But it will be well to connect it, if much must be said on it, with the great 
frauds and peculations of Holley, Van Tuyl, John V. N. Yates — (who I believe for love of me 
writes many of the scurrilous articles in our papers,) in appropriating about $800 of Pedlers' 
License Fees, &c. &c. Nov/ as to my War Services, (a more agreeable subject,) I was out 
two campaigns — in 1812 on the northern frontier — belonged to the party which took, from the 
enemy at St. Regis the first stand of colors taken in the late war, on land, and the first prison- 
ers (.about 40 in number.) These prisoners, were in a house built of square timber. I personally 
headed the party that took them — myself broke open the house, entered it, and took from the 
hands of the soldiers their arms, &c, I care not how much this matter is handled, but rather 
they would let my pantaloons alone. I return your remarks. Yours, &c. W. L. MARCY. 



Bitchie prodigiovshj sensitive — Webb attacks him — icihat impudence ! — Webh denounced as an 

apostate .' — Mtimford's help invoked — Ritchie bets on Jackson, as Butler pays at Sandy 

Hill, " in a small way." 

[No. 239.] Thomas Ritchie, Editor of the Enquirer, to J. Hoyt, N. Y. 

RicuMONP, Oct. 20, 1832. — My dear Sir: 1 have been prevented by several pressing engage- 
ments from presenting you my sincere acknowledgements for the kindness you have rendered 
me. In truth, I wished to send you the notice in the Enquirer which I intended to have taken 
of Webb's illiberal and unwarrantable attack. 

His attack by the Cholera delayed my article, and then I was engaged in assisting in prepar- 
ing the Address of the Jackson Central Committee — and I really had no time then to write you. 
I have taken the liberty of sending you Ihe two last Enquirers. The one containing the ad- 
dress, and ve.'stf-rday's paper, giving Duff Green's recantation on the subject of Mr. Jefferson's 
letter and Webb's article. 

Permit me now, sir, to thank you most cordially for the servii^e you have done me. It ena- 
bles me to put that calumny against me at rest for ever. Even Webb has not had the audacity 
to justify his misrepresentation, or to rebut my answer, but by trumping vp other calumnies and 
abuse against me. 

Between ourselves, the lettter which closes my article, is from the gentleman who marrieu 
Mr. Jefferson's grand- daughter — lived in his family — and copied his manuscripts for the press 
after he was dead. He deserves the high character I have given him. Indeed nothing ever 
did surprise me more, than that Webb had the impudence to about Mr. Jefferson's 

opinions. 

There are hundreds in Virginia who would to the favorable sentiments of that dis. 

tingui^hed man towards myself. 

Will you add to the favor you have done me by asking of Mr. Mumford the kindness to re- 
publish in the Standard, my reply to J. W. Webb. The apostate will never do me the justice, 
which I have lately done him in a cnse into which I was thrown into some mistake, about him. 
Will Mr. .\I. do me the favor to spread my defence before the People of New York as soon as 
he can find spare space for it? 

I think everv thing is working risrht for A. Jackson. I AM BETTING THREE TO ONE 
ON HIS RE-ELECTION. IN A SM.\LL WAY. As to Virginia, she will be found right o« 
the day of election next Monday fortnight. The legislative Ticket will prevail. 

Present me most kindlv, with my thanks to Mr. Bowne, and my re'--pocts. thoueh personally 
unknown, to Mr. Livingston. Gratefully yours, THO.MAS RITCHIE. 



S. 1). Ingham, Sec. Treas., to Jesse Hoyt, N. York. 
[No. 210.] Washington, 10th Nov. 18.32 — Dear Sir : I thank you for the information 
in your letter of the 8th. This Election, together with that of Pa., must kill Anti-masonrv. 
They will not again raise that flag in the valion, and scarcely in a State. It will be driven 
back into a few counties — but Mr. Clay is also done ; honiever desperately he may fight in a for- 
lorn hope, that is not the character of his friends. Thi'y cannot again be brnughi up to the 
charge. Yours with great respect. S. D. INGIIAIM. 

t .Iiidse MirfV wn-; poor, iind plui-eil in nflire tn snvp him fri>iii rniii. Tn 18:10. tlie lesislatiirs of N'.nv York 
pn'sed a liiw rpi|ii iritis one ot'llio Suprpini! Toiirt .Imliresfo liolil n Cirroil in Ningnra noiintv, to try tlio indirtinPnts 
for killing Morgiin f )r writing iiUonl nnsonry. mill iliroctPfl tliiil his expenses slinulcl he iiiiid. Mnri'v " :!■- swiecled. 
and he k<"|it sn nrronnt of every c.i'ut expemleil, iiinonj which he enninernted ^-T plmiIs to n RiitViilo ImrhiT, nnd 
•SOcents to n tnilor f.ir sewinj up n very nnsiehlly rent in his lirperlios. Ahout this extra -.indEinj. cxtrii-pav, iinrt 
hill tnilors nnd hrirliprs' hills, ii liuigli wiis niiai'd. which lie wiis wpakpnouirh or wise enouili to Irenl ns iiliove. If 
inch cftrefuliipss in ih'tails lind heen his worif fnilt. I would Imvp lipcn ainonir his wnrinest adinirurs. His war 
puflTniip'-ari'd in due form in llic Arso'^ nnd I'.vpiiinj I'osi, and doiilillps^ aided his elpnfioii. He had said in the 
United Stales Senate, that " To the Vii-lnrs hfllnns the .'Spoils," and on that iirinriplc iliil he admin stpr the ffovern- 
ment of N, Y. Mnrev is ovpr (Iftv years of hl-p. I have heard, hot am not sure that It is so, that he is from Mass. 
BiiJ riime to Troy, opened a ehoe store there, end then tnriied liiwycr, like iloyt. 



VAN BURENISM TTNMASKED. ALLEN'S TAMMANY BANK. 241 

Too harefaced even for Hoyt .' — Stephen Aliens Tammany Hall Bank, to hrins the Democracy 
under the direct influence of exclusive privileges, in open mockery of their principles. 
[No. 241.] Stephen Allen, Receiver General of Sub Treasury's advice to Jesse HoytatN. Y. 

At-BAMy, Nov. 98,1832. — Dear Sir : Nothing is more true than the observation made 
by Mr. V:m Biiren at the Democratic festival; that the democratic party, in a great meas- 
ure, owe their present and previous victories to Tammany Hall, the place of concentrated opin- 
ion and action, and a rallying point of the democracy of the city, or words to that effect. There 
cannot be a doubt but that the building of that Hall, and thus far preserving it as a Party Es- 
tablishment, and a rallying place on all occasions for the Republicans of the City and surround- 
ing Counties, has been one of the means of our triumphs. >:( 

I was one of the Committee who purchased the ground — made the contracts for buildinir—^"- 
and raised the money to pay for it. 

The opperations of that Committee ardious and responsable, as during the progress of the 
work they were frequently compelled to raise considerable sums on the responsibility of their 
own names. The whole establishment cost about S>^5,000 ; all of which t^um was subscribed 
by individuals of the party e.xcept ,^18,000 (if I recollect right.) and for which last sum the 
premises are now under mortgage. 

If Me j7rtr<!/ properly estimated the benefit it ha.q received from the establishment, this debt 
would have been cleared off by subscription long since ; but such a result, perhaps, is not to be 
expected. 

A thought has therefore occurred to me, and which it is the object of this letter to communi- 
cate ; whether the extinction of this debt may not be effected by oblainino- the CHARTER 
OF A BANK, by the name of THK TAMMANY BANK. 

There cnnot he a more favorable period than the present for such an application. 

The large majority wc have in both Houses and the good feelmg evinced by the Country to- 
M-ards US consequent on the large vote given by the City to the democratic candidates, toseiher 
with the important object of relieving Old Tammany from its embarrassments, WITH OTHER 
CONSIDERATIONS, I should presume would carry the bill through triumphantly. 

The following plan of a Bank, I think would eflect the object. 

The capital to be FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS AT LEAST. The Society 
of Tammany to he PRIVILIDGED to subscribe for $'100,000 of the Stock. The Bank to be 
authorized to loand the amount on their bond, at an interest of three per cent per annum the loan 
to be for three or four years. If the Bank divides six per cent on its stock, the SOCIETY 
would receive THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS annually, over and above the interest on the 
loan, which, in three years, would amount to ,$9,000. 

In the mean time the stock would advance in value, and if sold at the end of three or four years, 
would probably be v,-orth ten per cent above par, netting a clear gain of $10,000, by which op- 
peration the Society would be put into possession of $19,000, a fund more than sufficient to 
clear off the incumbrance. 

My opinionyou no doubt knoif is in opposition to an increase of these Bankins: Monopolies in 
the City — but the Legislature WILL make them — and therefore IF WE must have them, there 
cannot be a more legitimate object to be effected, both in a party point of view, as well as the 
charitable attributes of the Society, than the one alluded to. 

If you think well of the matter, I wish you would consult some of our leading men — and if, 
on due consideration, the project should be deemed proper, it will be necessary that a notice 
should be published i/f the intention to apply, which you know may be published without the 
name of the applicant. 

I wish it to be distinctly understood that I cannot serve in any of the offices created by such an 
institution — but any as.-^istance I can give in advancing the interests of Old Tammany will be 
cheerfully afforded. 

You will, of coarse, let the matter drop if, upon a view of the subject it shall be deemed in- 
expedient. I am with due respect, your ob't serv't, STEPHEN ALLEN. 

Hnyt desires C. L. Livingston to be re-elected Speaker of Assembly — let him renounce his prin- 
ciples — ice must be hostile to the prijsent bank of the U. S. 
[No. 24-2.] Lorenzo Hovt, Albany, to his brother Jesse, at New York. 

Ai.BANV, Dec'r. 10, 1832. — Dear Brotiiek : in one of your late letters you wished me to do 
what I eoulJ to make Charles Livingston, t Speaker; this I will cheerfully do; but his course 

t Lorenzo did not libmir in vain for the Old Hunkers of Tiimmany. at tlie request of tlieir man of all work Jesse 
Hoyt. Charles lavinjstuii was re-elected speaker of the .Assembly with liut liitle «|)|)osition — and a third time in 
Jan. 18i!3, havini receiveii 90 votes to John C. S|)encpr'.s 2-i. The Hunkers next ni.ide him tlieir .Senator for the 
district which includes the city of New York, and their representative was every wiiy icortlitj vf kis patrons. A 
resoluion was introdncevi into the Senate in lPlt-2 ajainst recharterin^ the United Stales Hank, which wq-: opposed 
bv STEPHEN ALLE.V and others, and supported by N. P. Tullni.id^'e. Edmonds and Beardsley. Speaker Liv- 
ingston, with Messrs. Van Scliaick and Stilwell went with Edmonds for the U. S. li.ink, hue the pet bank coalitioa 
weri» successful. Lorenzo Hoyt wishes Livingston to seem to come round to the jicls. 



242 THE PRESENT (!) BANK. AN ANCHOR AHEAB. BLAIR DEFEATED, AND HOW. 

last month, in relation to the United States Bank resolution, I fear will defeat him, unless his 
mind on that subject, has undergone a change, and he is willing to avow U Ot.9 was a conspl 
cuous advocate of the Morehouse resolution, as originally introduced, and I think that circum- 
stances will give him a decided advantage in the contest for Speaker, over any man that took 
the course that Livingston did. . , . 

I think the [U S.l Bank question will enter, more or less, into every other political one that is 
agitated here this winter-and I think and hope that our friends will feel no disposiUon to re- 
trace, in any degree, their steps last winter. As a party in this State I think ^e are fully com- 
mitted to acoruse of uncompromising hosHlHy to THE PRESENT Bank-^ni ^^^ Old H.ckory 
has suffered himself to be duped— «jAicA / think not unUkely-hy Livingston and McLane, he 

must take the consequences. ,,,^.,^11 i. c r .i,,» 

In addition to Otis and Livingston, I have heard a Mr. Litchfield, a member from one of the 
western counties, named as a candidate for Speaker ; and if he will consent to run, which is 
doubtful he will probably be nominated. He is an old member of the House, and has been 
a member of Conc^ress ; and there was a strong disposition among the country members to 
run him last vear, "but he declined. If you know anything about Uvxngsyon s present views 
on the Bank question, I wish vou to write me forthwith, ii he is wise and wishes to acquire 
and maintain a standing with the Democracy of this state, he must renounce U.e pnnciple by 
him avowed last winter. ****** 1.. HUYl. 

Mock Democrats anxious to become United States Bank Directors. 
[No 243.1 C. C. Cambreleng to Jesse Hoyt, N. Y. 

Washington, Jan. 10, 1833.— Dear Sir : You are surprised at the appomtment ot Mr. Alley 
as Bank Director instead of Mr. Jackson. I was negligent in not writing to Mr. Jackson a 
second time The day Mr. White left here he stated that Mr. McLane desired us to say who 
Thodd be appointed, that he, Mr. White, had named Mr. Alley. I told him I was committed 
Jo Mr Jackson, and should recommend him-Mr. White then said that he would concur with 
me in'supportin- Mr. Jackson, and he wished me to write to Mr. McLane that he did so concur. 
I wrote him in behalf of Mr. White and myself, and also wrote him that I understood Mr. Ver- 
pll^ ck to be also favorable to Mr. Jackson. After this I presumed the matter settled, and so 
wrote to Mr. Jackson. Some days after I learned to my surprise, from Mr. McLane, hat in 

Verv secret reasons for appointing Alley. The way our friend Coddington got to be Fostmas. 

ter of Neio York. 
rxT 244 1 Same to Same. Washinston, lOth Jan'y, 1833. 

Private Dear H —I wish you to show the enclosed letter to Mr. Jackson. Mr. McLane, 
besides wiiich that letter contains (which is a true statement) had other reasons ichch cannot be 
explained on paper. There was no deception— no want of influence about it— the question 
rested on other grounds altogether. , , , , ■ 

Say to our frtnd C. [Coddington] in answer to his enquiries, that I had this morning a 
frank and full conversation with Mr. Barry, who tells me that he never authorized Mr. Smith to 
believe that he would appoint him, and that he had no idea of doing any such thing. Mr. 
Smith's goin-' on to New York has done him injury-/,, will not get the office. It ,s well 
understood by' the President, Mr. Barry, and by all who have any inluence here that when a 
chance takes place Mr. C. will undoubtedly be the man. Although I cannot and will not be 
inTtnmiental in the removal of Mr. Gouverneur, I will take care that our republican friends 
shallot be disappointed for the last time. When a change takes place, Mr. Coddington will 
be the choice of the President and the P. M T. ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^ ^ CAMBRELENG. 

O" Your letter is destroyed—do the like with this. Gov. Throop and Mr. Craig were nomi- 
nated to-day. 

One excellent vote try Gulian C. Verplanck—a pair of canting hypocrites out-gencraled. 
rXo245 1 Same to Same. Washingto.v, 15ih Feb. 1833. 

D«ar H— Yesterday Mr. Verplanck's vote would have elected Mr. Blair— lo-iay the Bank 
have electf d a printer for us by one vote. 

I understand Mr. V. P's. The value of pledges may now be uod^rstood 

Sincerely youra, C. C. LAMBKt.LibJNL». 



THE GOLD MINE, U. S. LOMBARD TRANSFER, AND BROTHERS WETMORE- ~'53 

Bet of Gold Jlinc on Gen'l Jackson — Clay— Nullification dead— the Golden Lot fery — Value of 
Gold Mines— a $20,0n0 prize. 
No. 246.] R. J. Arnold, to Jesse Hoyt, New York. 

White Hall, [Savannah, Ga.,] March 14, 1833.— Dear Sir : Since I last wrote you I have 
not received a line from Buyd ; and the only official intelligence that I have of his proceedings, 
I received through your letter of the I8tii ult. which came to hand a few days since ; ;ind also a 
certificate of one share of the N. A. Mining Go's, stock, the one due me out of the six shares 
remitted to pay the bet of five shares lost by me on the re-election of General Jackson. It is 
strans^e times in the political world, such revolutions I never before witnessed, and were I in the 
field, I should be somewhat at a loss on what side to fight. Jackson lias certainly risen in my 
estimation since I saw you, and of Clay's proceedings I do not know what to think or say, but I 
suppose we shall know more ere long. NuUitication being dead, it will not be long be- 
fore something else will be gotten up to create a political exciten;ient : Mhat that iiKiy be time 
alone will develope. You ask me how the Gold Lottery is getting on ? and what efl'ect it will 
have on our stock ? In answer to the first, I know but little respecting it, excepting that I un- 
derstand the drawing is nearly finished ; and with respect to the last, 1 should presume it would 
decrease the market value of all mines, so many being offered for sale. As yet, however, I have 
not heard of any changing hands, though I should presume some sales had been effected. I 
know that many persons did speculate in the chances before the drawing. The best speculation 
I have heard of late was by a neighbour of mine who went into Savannah last week, bought a 
ticket in one of the northern lotteries, for $-5, and the following dav received the intelligence of 
its having drawn ^20,000— took $17,000, and came home. Yours, &c. R. J. ARNOLD. 

General Prosper M's humble prayer to Collector Sicartwout, for a family admissicn into his po- 
litical Poor House — a queer argument, backed by Cornelius W. Lawrence, Price, Lee, Allen, 

and other Wire Pullers of pretended Democracy. 

[No. 246a.] General Prosper M. Wetmore to Collector Swartwout. 

New York, April 18, 1833.— Dkar Sir : I was so unwell the day I called on you that I fear 
I did not succeed in impressing you with the interest, the deep interest I feel in the success of 
the application I then made to you. 

I have refrained from troubling you again personally in the matter from two reasons — first, 
because these solicitings are, I know, as unpleasant to you as they are mortifying to me. A 
further motive for my relieving you thus long from this importunity, has existed in the probabil- 
ity, that, while there was an uncertainty about Mr. Craven's continuance in ofHce, you might 
wish to keep the other appointment open. 

Since [ saw you. General Spicer has again visited Washington, and is now returned. He 
expects to be provided for to his satisfaction, and is anxious that Mr. Ogsbury may have the 
benefit of his vacancy. Under these circumstances, I must again throw myself upon your in- 
dulgence for permission to say how very much I should feel obliged by your compliance with 
the request. 

Apart from the connection existing between us — he is my wife's father — I am bound to him 
for many favours received in his days of prosperity, and which I have no means of returning. 
His character — business talents — industry — integrity — general popularity — all would conspire to 
make his appointment acceptable to the merchants and citizens. If individual recomraenda- 
tions were necessary, they could be furnished to any gicen number, I can hardly think them 
to be so for one so well known. 

If I can be supposed to have the slightest possible influence with you, or claim on the adminis. 
tration — and I do not pretend to either — / beg that both may be transferred to Mr. Ogsbury, ii 
they can in any way advance his interest in this application. 

There is one view of this subject in which perhaps both Mr. Ogsbury and myself might be 
justified in this application. He has been for many years engaged in the importation of Goods. 
I have also in former years contributed to the revenue — My brother, with whom I now am, and 
my brother-in-law, George Treadwell, icho takes a large interest in this affair — are both 
extensively engaged in foreign importations. It might be considered that individuals so situated 
fiave a stronger claim than those who have never contributed to the revenue. 

Excuse me for saying so much ; I did not intend it when I commenced this letter. It you can 
favourably consider the application, I most sincerely hope you will do so. Of one thing I am 
sure, you will never regret having conferred the appointment on the individual named. 

With great respect, I am your obedient servant, * PROSPER M. WETMORE. 

Name of applicant, Francis Ogsbury, 391 Broadway. 

* General Prosper was ;i regular introducer of candirtates f)r office nt the Castom House. His abilities as on 
office-beggar on Ins own behalf may be Inferred from his appeal fur his father-in-law to succeed his old partner in 
•.he Uoiied States Lornbard, General Spicer, whose raoHest appeal to his neighbor Swnrtsvout for a share of the 
ruhlie olunder, backed by Mr. Van Bnren, forms No. 178 of this series. In niiother letter to Swiirtu-out, dated 
l^b, 31, 1835, he tells him that " Mr. McDerraot is about to apply for a situation under the general govcniment, 



5J44 MUMFOKD, BENNKTT, VAN BUREN S CAUSE, OGSEURY AJJD FPvEE PRESSES. 

[No. 247.] Attorney General John Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt, N. Y. — Dear Sir : Please 
pay Glover one hundred and flftv dollars and accommodate vour recently much abused friend. 
A f your office, Saturday, 2 P. M. (May, 1833.) ' J. VAN BUREN. 

^4 National Convenfinn — .'$40,000 given io John Mninford — Ingratitude. 
[No. 248.] J. G. Bennett to J. Hoyt, N. York. Postmark, Piiii.ADr.i.PHrA. 13ih June [ISS.'i.] 
Dear Hoyt: You will spo by the papers what we are about here. My object is to make the 
party come out for a National Convention. It can be done by prudence, skill, and address. In 
relation to what I talked m you in New York, I have an earne=!t word to say. I really wish that 
my friends there would try to aid me in the matter I formerly mentioned. Morrison I t'eiir will 
do nothing. John Mumford has been aided to the extent of g'40,000. With a fourth of that 
sum I would have done twice as much — soberly and with some decency too. I should be sorry 
IO be compelled to believe that my friends in New York should bestow their friendship more 

effectually upon a dr en fellow than me, who certainly has some pretensions to decency. 

I am sorry to speak harshly of any body, but really I think there is something like in2;ratiiude in 
the way I have been treated. I v.-ant no favor that I cannot repay. I want no aid that is not 
perfectly safe. I should like to hear from you, if there is anv likelihood of my success. 

Yours, fcci J. GORDON BENNETT. 



Bmnctt of the Herald trying to borrow ii§2,500 fro7n Van Buren. 
[No. 249.] Same to same. Pnii.ADrLrnrA, 27th July, 1833. — Dear Hoyt: I have 
written to Van Buren to-day about the old aitair. I MUST have a loan of J5;2500 for a couple 
of years from some quarter. I can't (let on without it. — and if the common friends of our 
cause — those I have been working for 8 years — cannot do it, I must look for it somewhere else. 
My business here is doing very well — and the money would be perfectly safe in two years. You 
spe already the eiTect produced in Pennsylvania — we can have the State — But if our friends wont 
lay aside their heartlessncss, why, we'll go to the devil — that is all. There is no man who will 
go further with friends than I will — who will sacrifice more — who will work harder. You know 
it very well. I must be perfectly independent of the little sections in this city, who would hurry 
me into their small courses, at the risk of the main object. Kendall leaves Washington to- 
morrow on his tour of Bank Inspection, t Let me hear from you. 

Yours, &.C. JA'S GORDON BENNETT. 



A Scotchman''s thanks fm- " working night and day for the cause of Mr. Van Buren'' — anguish, 
disappointment, despair .' — suspected, slandered, rerdled .' — Bennett's share in IVcbb's printing 
office — Cold, heartless, careless Van Buren .' — IVhal can I do ? 

[No. 2jO.] Same to same. Philadelphia, 3rd Aug't 1833. — Dear Hoyt: lam ex- 
tremely sorry at the result of your efforts. The effect is inevitable : 1 viu^t break down in the 
very midst of one of the most important contests which VAN BUREN'S GAUiBE ever got 
into in this state. I do not see how 1 oan avoid it. With every advantage in my favor — 
with every preparation made — every thing in the finest trim to check. mate and corner all the 
opposition to Van Buren, and to force them to come out in his favor — as I know they must do 
soon — I must give way to the counsels of those who have most hostile feelings to the cause — 
and on what ground 1 Because neither Mr. Van Buren nor his friends will move a finger in my 
aid. I must say this is heartless in the extreme. I do not wish to use any other language than 
what will convey mildly the anguish, the disappointment, the despair I may say, which broods 
over me. If I liad been a straiiiicr to Mr. Van Buren and his friends — it I had been unknown — 
if I had been blest in being a blockhead — I might not have got into my present posture — nor 
would I have expected any aid from your quarter. But after NEARLY TEN YEARS «/)«»< 

nnd it is therefore nil act of jii.stice to liiin to suy t!mt in the pnst contrst. in this city, no man has more strong!;/ 
evinced a delcnninntion to sustain, the measures ofllie administrntion at the expence of prixate interests" — and there- 
fore he (VVetmore) desires tliat lie (McDorniot) may be repaiil hy a tiitsulary ! 

Immediately after the fall cL'ctioii of 1834, Messrs. Cornelius \V. Lawruiice, Win. M. Price, Sipplien ,\llen. .1. 
R. Whiting, It. Riker, Daniel .lackson, Cideon Ostrander, Rideon Lee, nnd W. P. Hallelt addressed a letter to their 
friend Sainnnl Swartwoiit, reque-tin;; that F. < )2sl)iiiy nii^dit he appointed an Inspector, as follow.s: "New York. 
i.'id Nov., 1>-HI. — Mr. D^sLiiry is iiii i.M iiilinhilaiit of this cilv — a firm supporter of the udniiiiislration — and iN 
THE L.VTK i;i,E(;T10X \VA.^ .VCIIVE A.M) l.NFLUENTiAL. " 

t In llciinctrs Kitchen Cabinet laid open, Xo. :), lie says, " I advocated tlio removal of tliedeposit< :" Imt he had 
•-tilted in his Pciinsylvaiiiaii, July 'JO. M-'X\, (liat it seemed to him probable that nothin;; would lie done till (^ongress 
met ; and for this the New York Van llurcn editors, whose speculating upholders wanted the bank plunder, denounc- 
ed him, while Van Buren himself fNu. S5-iJ disliked '■ the evident tendency of lii.s paper." kendull wrote him from 
Haltiinore that be was sorry ho bad said ' thai the deposites would not be removed '" — adding, " I <-liall want your 
most prudent counsel when 1 <jol" to I'biladelpbia. " I bad been and was fur a removal, but 1 doubted whether 
this mode was boncsl," says Hc-iiuclt — he also published a letter iVoiu Kendall, accusing him of " sowing the seeds 
of distrust far and wide," and telling him that be iniglit " raise up a great paper in Philadelphia — one which shall 
almost control the Democracy of Pennsylvania." but to do that he would have to keep on good terms with " the 
otlier leading Democratic pajiers in (ho t'nion." Mr. IJciinclt ue.\l applied to Van Buren, thro' Iloyi, for a loan, 
and would probably have got it had not the regency been afraid that a trap was set fur them, iceing they had said 
to much about buying up the preh'i — iiioreo\ er, iieuneit hud nut worked well in jiarty harness, so they said. 



PRESSES Bo't for GLOBE AND STANDARD. J. G. B. ()::;>" KEEP HONEST ! 245 

in New York, WORKING NIGHT AND DAY FOR THE CAUSE OF MR. VAN 
BUREN AND HIS FRIENDS, surrounded, too, as I have been, with those who were con. 
tinually talking against him, and poisoning me to his prejudice, the treatment which I have re. 
ceived from him and his friends during this last year, and up to this moment, is as superlatively 
heartless — and if I could use any other word more expressive of my sentiments I would — as it 
is possible to conceive or imagine. By many of those whom I have supported for years I have 
been suspected, slandered, and reviled as if I had been in bitter hostility to Mr. Van Buren for 
years, instead of supporting him through every weather, and even sacrificing myself that 1 might 
retain the same feelings towards him — for I assure you I might have continued my connection 
with the C. and E. last year, very much to my advantage — retained my share in the printing 
office of that establishment, if I had not differed with Mr. Webb on the points that you know so 
well of. I sold out however to Hoskin — saved a small pittance from the wreck of the Globe — 
came here and invested it in the Pennsylvanian, which is now entirely under my control, provided 
I could find a friend anywhere between heaven and earth to help me along, and enable me to carry 
out MY FIXED PURPOSE IN FAVOR OF VAN BUREN and his friends. But that friend 
God has not yet made, though several of the opposite character the other gentleman has put his 
brand upon, and fondly says " this is mine." 

/ except you, DEAR HOYT — I am sure you would help the cause if you could. I find no 
fault with you, although what fault vo" .,iid with me about the deposits is nonsense, and only a 
clamour raised in Wall street by a lew of the jealous blockheads hostile to me, who have not 
brains to see that in this city we can use the deposit question very efficiently in the October 
election. I do not blame even the jealous blockheads or any others in New York — I blame 
only one, and that is the Vice President himself. He has treated me in this matter as if I had 
been a boy — a child — cold, heartless, careless and God knows what not. By a word to any of his 
friends in Albany he could do the friendship I want as easily as rise and drink a glass of Sara- 
toga water at the Springs. He chooses to sit still — to sacrifice those loho have supported him in 
every weather — and even hardly to treat me as one gentleman would treat another. 

/ scarcely knoic what course I shall pursue, or what I shall do. I am beset on all side.'! with 
importunities to cut him — to abandon him — What can I do? What shall I do I I know not. 
You will excuse this letter — you can easily appreciate the situation of a man confident of suc- 
cess if properly supported — but nothing before him but the abandonment of his deliberate pur- 
poses or a shameful surrender of honor and purpose and principle and all. 

Yours truly, J. G. BENNETT. 

I do not know whether it is worth the while to write to Van Buren or not — nor do I care if 
you were to send him this letter. 



The past and the future placed before Jesse Hoyt. 
[No. 251.] Same to same. — Philadelphia, I5th Aug't, 1833. — Dear Hoyt : I iiave not 
heard from you for a week. I hope that my old friends — if I ever had any — which I begin to 
doubt — will not forget what I have heretofore done or what I may do. Do let me hear from you 
again for good and all at least. I am, Dear Sir, Yours, &,c. JA'S G. BENNETT. 



Van Buren will not lend his friend Bennett one cent — but will bestow his good wishes upon him 
as long as he keeps honest .' .' .' — Van Buren dare not venture to trust himself on paper to his 
'riend — Cannot Philadelphia uphold one Van Buren Press? 

[No. 252.] Vice President Van Buren, to Jesse Hoyt at New York. 
Sakatoga Springs, August 19, 1833. — {Free, M. Van Buren.) — Dear Sir : I return your Mr. 
B's letters, [i. e. No. 250. &c.] / have never doubted his personal friendship for me. I would al- 
ways have been happy to do him good, but I cannot directly or indirectly afibrd pecuniary aid to 
his press, and more particularly so as I am situated at the present moment. If he cannot con- 
tinue friendly to me on public grounds and with perfect independence, I can only regret it, but I 
desire no other support. Whatever course he may pursue, as long as it is an honest one, I shall 
wish him well. He does not understand the relation between the Editors he quarrels with and 
myself, or he would not complain of me for their acts. They are as independent of me in the 
management of their papers, as I wish him to be, and remain. I had intended to have said thas 
much to him, but the , your letter, and the evident tendency of his paper, render it 

prelerable that I should not. I did suppose that he would have found no difficulty in obtaining 
money in New York as others get it, if our friends in Philadelphia could not all-together make 
out to sustain one press. If you happen to meet him I wish you would make these explanation.? 
to him, BUT KEEP THIS. I am, in haste, your friend, M. VAN BUREN. 



[No. 253.] Vice President Van Buren, to Jesse Hoyt, N. York. 

Albany, Sept. 7, 1833. — Dear Sir : General Vance, with whose good character and respect- 
ability you are well acquainted, goes to New York on business in which our State is deeply in- 
terested, and in respect to which you may perhaps be of service to him. If you can do so, I hope 
you will — and am very cordially yours, M. VAN BUREN, 



240 SILAS WRIGHT INTRIGiriNG — JOHN VAN BUREN CURSING. 

Stocks, Checks, Shirts, and Drawers — Swearing, Spelling, and the letter S. 
[No. 254.] Attorney General John Van Biiren, to Jesse Hoyt, N. Y. 

Albany, Dec. 19, 1833. — ' My Dear' Hoyt (as some rascal writes lo ' Webb') — I enclose 
you your check, for your comfort — it was deposited in the Bank for collection, and, of course, is 
returned to you without inconvenience. As for money, I don't know that I shall be peculiar 
short (not physically but pecuniarily) unless Boston and Providence should go down to a mere 
anatomy. Jn that event I fear the ex-Danish Commissioner and myself will be a ' below-par 
nobile' of sufferers. 

Please to let Willard of the City Hotel be apprised that I want two flannel shirts, and as many 
pairs of drawers, to be had of Tryon for a trifle alias, credit. 

I am not a ' Councellor' and be d d to you — and if I were I should spell it with an ' S' in 

the middle. Yours ' to sarve,' J. VAN BUREN. 

P. S. Since the foregoing effusion was poured forth, I have enquired at the Bank, and find 
your check has been sent to New York. I suppose the easiest way ' to work it,' is to enclose 
you, as I do, my check on this bank for the same amount, payable at the same time. J. V. B. 

[No. 255.] J. A. Hamilton, to Jesse Hoyt, on supporting ' the Standard.' 
New York, Dec. 30, 1833. — Dear Sir: In reply to your enquiry whether I am willing to 
unite with other friends in raising money to sustain the Standard, I have to say — that if 30 
persons will agree to advance $250 each, the repayment to be satisfactorily secured upon the 
paper, 1 will agree to advance $250 whenever the arrangement is completed. 

With very great respect, &c. JAMES A. HAMILTON. 

Governor Silas setting the wheels in motion — contracts to he kept hy Farmers with Patroons, 
but may be broken at will with National Banks — no thunder from the city — Plunder's our 
game, and ' our state leads' — the legislature is a party organ ; let it play up ' Judas's march' — 
Instructions from Washington how to manufacture public opinion at Albany, for effect at 
Washington — also for country use I 

[No. 256.] Silas Wright, U. S. Senate, to Jesse Hoyt, New York. 
Washington, 3d Jan'y, 1834. — My Dear Sir : Your letter and the enclosure came to me this 
day, and I have this evening sent both to Mr. Flagg, with such suggestions as occurred to me. 
Nothing can be clearer, in my mind, than that the friends of the Administration in your City 
should not attempt to get up a popular meeting upon this subject. The legislature is the proper 
organ to speak for the people upon this important subject, and there is not a doubt that they 
should act without one moment's delay. It is too late to fear any effect from the allegation 
that our Slate leads. The subject is now before the Virginia legislature, and I think it quite 
likely they will recommend a restoration of the deposits. The legislature of Ohio have acted, 
and go strona; against the Bank — in favor of the removal of the deposites — and against the land 
bill. I say they have acted. The mail to-day has br<night a copy of their resolutions, which 
had passed the Senate, and which Mr. Morris, the Jackson Senator from that State, says will 
pass the House 3 to 1. Every legislature in the Union will act upon this subject, and ours will 
not be behind. 

If the friends of the Bank in your city attempt to get up a popular meeting, the subject will be 
one which the friends of the Administration on the ground will best know how to dispose of — 
but in any other way I do not think the 7nass of your somewhat excited population should be 
called to act. 

The state of feeling here is very violent, and popular meetings either way can have little effect. 
Still I should dislike to see a meeting in New York seeming to embody an undivided expression, 
given to our opponents — for the political effect in the country would be bad. I have no time to 
write farther — but shall be hnppy to hear from you often and freely. 
I thirdi the legislature .should — in the shortest possible language — 
1st. E.xpress an opinion against the re-charter of the Bank in any form. 
2nd. Approve cf the communication read to the Cabinet on the 18th Sept. last. 
3rd. Approve of the change of the deposits. 
4th. Approve of the reasons given by the Secretary for that change,* both on the ground of 

* Governor Wright well knew thnt he wns advisiiifr n violntinn nf a. contrnct with the linnk, anil, of course, of 
the Uniled States constitution. He bills Ilnyt to pet the piirty fuglemen in the legislature to cauie it (o nppr..ve of 
Attorney CenernlTimev's reasons. What n worM this is! Had W. .1. Diiane consented to the plunder of the 
Uniled States Hank, and the enriching of the Van liuri-n pet hanks with the spoils, he might have remained in oiTioe 
an Secretary of the Treasury, gone to Uussiii on an .$18,000 bonus as a sinecure minister, or received the revard 
obtained hy the supple parasite Taney, the Chief .Justiceship of the Ifnied States. Hiving ncleil honestlv. he was 
thrust from office, iiis husincss as a lawyer had gone into other hands on liis removal to Washingtnn, and from that 
day to this, the hired pre-^sps of the Van Huren schoid have slandered him without the slightest regard for truth. Is 
it thus Ihiit American freedom can bo upheld 1 Wright iii the Allianv Senate, voted for banks, and took stock in 
them— in Washington lie pulTcd Ihein, got the puldc money placed in them, borrowed out that money next, with 
other Hpecubitors, lo r;il-c the prices (d'the public lands to the people — the national treatiiro was used to blind and 
brib«the millioni to .h.ct Van Jturcn ;ind uphold the party— and, thttt done, Wright in 1837, -ienouncod his own 
{mU u •■ louUsu axiiianoe*," evct faitbl<Mi in timu of nee<f. 



CORNELITTS W. LAWRENCE, OR THE CRYING CONGRESSMAN. 24t 

the near expiration of the Charter, and on the ground that the Bank has abused its chartered 
powers and privileges, and has become a political institution. i 

These points will cover the whole case in a form and manner most applicable to the state of 
things here. Most truly yours, SILAS WRIGHT, JR. 

[No. 257.] Cornelius W. Lawrence, M. C, to a Friend in New York. 

Washington, 24th January, l&o4. — My Dear Sir: Your favor of the 2 1st was received late 
last evening. I a7n inclined to think we shall have a project introduced FOR A NATIONAL 
BANK, as well as a renewal of the old one, upon principles somewhat different than [from?] 
the bill rejected by the President. [Jackson.] Perhaps new propositions, not either attacking or 
sustaining the administration, loould receive the approbation of the country. 

The motion to return the Deposites is justly considered an attack upon the President, and it 
is resisted on that ground — but nothing is yet matured, I believe. 

Respectfully your ob't servant, CORNELIUS W. LAWRENCE. 

[Remakks. — It was Mr. Van Buren's rule, and it appears to be Mr. Polk's, to reward with 
offices, contracts, early information, or in some sure and effectual way, those congressmen, 
state-legislators, or other persons holding official station by popular suffrage, who had in any 
way injured their characters and standing by violating principle to serve party, right or wrong. 
It is in this way that Mr. Lawrence has obtained the N. Y. Custom House, with its patronage, 
and vast influence and emoluments. 

A few months after writing the lettersof the 24th, 26th, and 31st of Januaiy, 1834, here given, 
the name of C. W. Lawrence was put up by the Van Buren Safety Fund Bank men, in opposi- 
tion to the friends of the U. S. Bank, for Mayor of New York. Mr. Lawrence had been elec- 
ted to Congress in Nov. 1832, by 5895 votes over Mr. Ogden, the highest whig candidate. When 
now opposed to G. C. Verplanck for Mayor his 5895 majority dwindled down to 180 ; obtained, 
too, by a sacrifice of principle for the love of gain. At the great celebration, by the whigs of 
N. Y., April 15, 1834, the 5th regular toast was " Cornelius W. Lawrence, whose HEART was 
with us, but whose NECK was with his party." That it was tightly in the collar there is abun- 
dant testimony. The reader, on perusing Mr. Lawrence's three letters, will perceive that this 
toast told the simple truth. His judgment was avowedly on one side and his votes were on the 
other. His prospects of adding to his wealth by the sacrifice of his opinions were in the one 
scale — honor and honesty were in the other — " in private (says the Cour. & Enq. of April 9, 
1834) he admitted that the removal (of the public treasure) was inexpedient. To those who 
conversed with him on the subject he admitted that this removal was uncalled for and impoUtic." 
Yet he voted for the removal, on a pledge, well kept, that he would get the fingering of two 
millions of dollars of these deposites himself, for a bank to be started in Wall street, with spe- 
cial privileges, and called the Bank of the State of New York, of which bank he and his cronies 
should have the control, the jugglery of disposing of its shares, &c. The bargain was fulfilled 
by Van Buren — Lawrence had the two millions — had the two million bank charter — and 
had Jesse Hoyt's Custom House monies to boot — finally, he has the N. Y. Custom House, its 
vast power and influence, with his bank as a treasury pet, and his brother serving by way of a 
stool pigeon, as its president, till he fCornelius) is again ready to resume that lucrative office. 
"As for supposing that Newbold, George Grisvvold, Stephen Whitney, or any of the old federal 
commercial men were with us on this occasion, for any other reason, than because they found it 
for their interest to go with us, 1 never for one single instant had such an unwarrantable idea." 
These were Butlers remarks to Hoy t, Feb. 24, 1834 — and he might have included C. W. 
Lawrence, Morgan Lewis, Saul Alley, Preserved Fish, Ab'm Bloodgood, and several other 
rich men, who only went with Van Bin-en for the love of a share of the plunder. In the Cour. 
ier & Enquirer of April 8, 1834, we are told (and the fact is neither explained away nor con- 
tradicted) that several merchants of Mr. C. W. Lawrence's acquaintance called on him when 
on a visit to New York, a few weeks previous, when he "frankly avowed his conviction of the 
necessity of a Bank of the United States, and his disapproval of the conduct of the Executive 
(Jackson) in reference to the deposites ; but added, that he had bound himself BY A 
WRITTEN PLEDGE to uphold the party. Such was his sense of the embarrassments of his 
situation that HE ACTUALLY WEPT." The crying congressman, the weeping stock-jobber 
'could have resigned had he disliked the party drill — but it brought him plunder, and he blub- 
bered and held on, and afterwards lent his name as a candidate for the mayoralty to uphold 
the gamblers he voted with in public, and whose dishonest measures and greediness of gain he 
had secretly condemned to Jesse Hoyt and others. The above letter (Jan. 24) was first pub- 
lished in the Mercantile Advertiser, which also gave paragraphs from another letter by Law. 
rence, written after 'the party' had resolved not to go for a new bank, as Daniel Jackson and 
Cambreleng had privately urged them, nor to re-chart^ the old one modified, as he (Lawrence) 
hoped they would — in which he had begged of the gefitleman to whom he had written, to give 
him his letter back again — he dreaded exposure and public shame. 

The Evening Fast, by Bryant, denounced the bill introduced into th« N, York Legislature, 



248 Webb's puzzle, lawrence, hoyt. kernochan and the bank. 

by recommendation of Marcy's six million message, which John Van Buren had speculated on, 
dechirint; tiiat it would m:ike " Lawrence run like the Cholera," lor mayor. According to the 
Post, It should have been entitled " An Act to loan the credit of this State to the Speculators, 
Monopolists, and Rag.money dealers thereof." 'i'he tradmg politicians of the state, then, as 
now, went any ami every way for g-nin — Avarice was their god. " If the United States Bank i8 
dangerous to the liberties of the country (asked the Cour. & Enq. of Jan. 28, 1832.) Aow came 
Governor Throop Ui vote fur it ? How is it that all this danger, all this unconstitutionality, has 
been discovered btj the Argus vnthin the last tu-^elvc months ! I .' ! .'" When George D. Strong 
was not an applicant for a bank charter at Albany, he opposed C. W. Lawrence, got up a nom- 
ination opposed to him for Alderman, and beat him too — but in April 1834, when he was peti- 
tioning the Regency for their sanciion to his Commercial Bank (which soon failed) he (Strong) 
went it strong for Lawrence as the only true democratic candidate for Mayor. Li Jan. 
1834, Lawrence wroie Hoyt, " that a national bank would be useful to the government and the 
country" — in April, same year, he voted Vvith Cambreleng to keep the public revenue in the 
vaults of the pets, tho' the U. S. Bank had paid the republic !$1,500,000 for the use of it, and 
also that it was unsafe to re-charter the National Bank. Three years after this, Lawrence's own 
bank was bankrupt, with two millions of dollars of the public plunder clutched in its grip, and 
he at the head of it. On Sept. 2.5th, 1843, Lawrence was one of Van Buren's Suh Treasury 
Vice Presidents at the meeting in the Park — and his bank keeps the deposites to this day, 
while, if the sub-treasury scene shall be re-enacted he will share the plunder there also, under 
some new and plausible form. — V/. L. M.] 

Collector Lawrence of JV. Y. on the Ecmoral of the Deposites — Calhoun, Preston, Clay, 
McDuffie, Rives, and the Nullifiers, their views. 
[No. 257.] Cornelius W. Lawrence, M. C, to Je.sse Hoyt, N. Y. 

Washington, 19th .Tan. 1834. — My Dear Sir : Your favor of the 8th (returned froin Fayette- 
ville, N. C.) was received this morning, and I notice in the Courier & Inquirer of Friday the 
17th, another letter to me, signed Jacob, referring to the deposites. 

You will no doubt have read Mr. Calhoun's speech— he admits the right of removal from 
office by the President, and says '• nor can I doubt that the power of removal from office, where- 
ver it exists, does, from necessity, involve the power of general supervision ; nor can I doubt 
that it might be constitutionally exercised in reference to the deposites." Then he goes on to 
say, that to prevent the removal of the deposites it would have been his [the President's] right 
and his duty to have removed the Secretary. 

In conversation yesterday with the other Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Preston, he ad. 
mitted the giving up the charge of a violation of the Constitution by the President — but the re- 
moval of the deposites was a violation of Contract with the Bank, &.c. 

I think Mr. Clay and Mr. McDuffie's position, of a usurpation of power by the President, is 
gone and the only question is as to the sufficiency of the reasons. Mr. Seaborn Jones of Geor- 
gia, a NuUifier, will speak next in our House — and he will maintain that the reasons given by 
the Secretary of the Treasury [Taney] are satisfactory and sufficient. 

If the Nullifiers give up the question of usurpation of power in the act in question, that point 
may as well be abandoned by the opposition with us, and Mr. Clay's first resolution cannot even 
pa.ss the Senate. 

Mr. Rives of Virginia is said to have made a very able speech in the Senate on Friday — and I 
have heard that a distinguished Scnntor frotn the east said afterwards, that on the constitutional 
argument he had demolished Mr. Clay. 

However I do not say these words were used, and do not wish to be quoted as reporting 
what any one says. My letters are only intended for my friends to whom they are addressed. 
Respectfully, your friend and obedient servant, CORNELIUS W. LAWRENCE. 

Cornelius the friend of a National Bank lohen behind the screen — The qjiaker on both sides of 

the fence at once. 
[No. 258.] Collector Lawrence to his 'assured friend' J. Hoyt. 

Washington, 2fith J'an'y. 1834. — My Dear Sir : I am much obliged to you for vour letter of 
the 21st, and I AM APPREHENSIVE OUR POLITICAL FRIENDS MAKE A MISTAKE 
IN GOING TOO FAR AGAINST A NATIONAL HANK, but I will have the pleasure ot 
writing a few days hence. Respectfully, your assured friend, CORN'S W. LAWRENCE. 

JToyt introduces Kernochan to Van Burenon behalf of the United States Bank. 
[No. 259.] To Vice President Van Buren. New Yokk, .January 28. 1834. 

Dear Sir: This will be handed you l)y my friend Joseph Kernochan, Esquire, one of the del- 
egates from the merchants of_ this City, chartred with a memorial to Consress in relation to the 
embarrassed condition of oiir Commercial affairs. He hsis now retired, but has recently been 
^j^teasively engaged in buainess, and his great experience enables him to knuw all the variety 



BANK ADVOCATES AND BANK ENVOYS. 



24^ 



of forms of Mercantile operations, and would seem to qualify him to express accurate opinions 
on this subject. He has been, ever since I have known him, and that is for many years, a uni- 
form supporier of the democratic administration of the Country, and continues that support to 
the measures of the present one, in all save its views in relation to the Bank of the United 
States, atid on this subject he says, as Mr. Jefferson once said, " differences of opinion are to be 
tolerated where reason is left free to combat them." His object in goinj: to Washington is purely 
with the hope of rendering a public service ; and if he should have a desire to state his views to 
you, I have no doubt you will ^ive him the opportunity. His great integrity of character will 
authorize you to place the utmost reliance upon his statements as to the true condition of busi. 
ness and business men in this city. Respectfully your friend and ob't serv't. J. HOYT. 

Hoyt introduces ' a Bank Missionary'' to Taney and Van Burcn. '■ 

[No. 260.] Jesse Hoyt, K. Y., to Vice President Van Buren, Washington. 
New York, Jan. 28, 1834. — Dear Sir : My friend and neighbor, Elbert J. Anderson, Esquire, 
who will deliver you this, visits Washington as one of a Committee of Merchants, charged v/itli 
a memorial from a portion of that class of our citizens, in relation to the present embarrassed, 
state of trade. He is extensively and actively engaged in business, and is familiarly acquainted 
with the dit^culties that seem, and no doubt actually do e.xist with all conmiercial and mercan- 
tile men. He is one of the few intelligent and ardent supporters of the present administration, 
who differ in opinion with it in relation to its views concerning the Bank of the United States. 
He makes a personal sacrifice in this mission, with no other motive than a desire to promote the 
interests of his fellow-citizens, and the information that he will be able to impart concerning this 
interesting subject, to those whose motives are in common with his own, commends him to your 
favourable notice. Though I do not agree with him in all his views, yet I take pleasure in bear- 
ing testimony to his great sincerity, and purity of character ; and his intelligence upon this sub- 
ject you will discover without any intimation from me. With great respect and consideration, 
I remain your friend and obedient servant. J. HOYT.t 

Lawrence firjuly believes in the utility of a National Bank, loliilc exerting all his powers to 

aid in crushing it .' 
[No. 261.] Collector Lawrence of N. Y., to his friend J. Hoyt. 

Washington, 31st January, 1834.— My Dear Sir: I can scarcely suppose it possible that I 
could have written any letter to authorize the paper you have enclosed to me, and I feel deeply 
mortified that any one should have authorized a publication in a newspaper. May I beg the fa- 
vor of you to request the person to whom it was directed to return it to me, or at least not to 
circulate it, and if any one should speak of the contents of my letters, please mention that I had 
repeated to you, that my letters were only intended for those to whom they were directed. _ I 
can not imagine who could have received the letter alluded to. I have no idea any compromise 
is thought of by either political party. 

It is7ny individual opinion that A NATIONAL BA^K with proper restrictions and subject 
to State Taxes, 65c., WOULD BE USEFUL TO THE GOVERNMENT AND COUNTRY, 
and I know there are other individuals in Congress of that opinion, and that is almost as much 
as I do know.t Respectfully, your friend, CORN'S W. LAWRENCE. 

The Missionary addresses Jesse as a friend to [HF the Bank. 
[No. 262.] Elbert J. Anderson to Jesse Hoyt, New York. 

Washington, February 1st, 1834.— Dear Sir : I have only to say that Mr. Wright's speech in 
the Senate, seems to preclude any hope of success from our mission ; nothing but the action ot 
the people in their primary assemblies can operate upon Congress, and you know better than I 
can what is to be hoped from that source. The deposit question will be settled, to confirm them 
where they are. The sooner that is settled, the better for all parties. Forty votes cannot be ob- 
tained in both houses of Congress in favor of [a] new bank, at present ; and the chance of a re- 
newal of the old charter, under any modifications, depends solely upon the contingency men. 
tioned above, a decided expression from the people. A metallic currency seems the present hob- 
by ; I conceive it utterly impracticable. If I see any hope of a change, I shall write ; you will 
please receive this only as my individual opinion. Your friend, 

^ J- :- f ELBERT J. ANDERSON, j 

t A similiir letter was sent with Mr. Anderson to Mr. Taney, Mr. Duane's successor in the Treasury Department, 
having the following words added :— " He has a great desire for an opportunity of conversing with you upon the 
" matters referred to, and I have taken the liberty to hand him this letter, and I beg you "''" '"'^|1 ?® "'^J''^^"*' 
"liberty, And believe me to be, &.c. JJi-feSh HOYl. 

t On the 26th of i\Iarch, 1831, Mr. Lawrence wrote Mr. H. Dnrell, in reply to an enquiry of the working men of 
the 6th Ward, New York, as follows: " In reference to the ' abolition of all licensed monopolies. On the broad 
ground, 1 admit the justice of the general proposition, that it is objectionable to give any man or set ot men, privi- 
leges which interfere with the just rights and liberties of others." He added, that as^to " a district system ot elec- 
tions," on which there had been " much discussion, he had not reflected sulficienlly." 



250 JOHN VAN BUREN CURSING, BETTING AND STOCKJOBBING. 

Van Duren and Swartwout, w?ien at sixes and sevens. 
[No. 263.] Vice President Van Buren to Abraham Miller, White Plains, West 
Chester county, N. Y. Washington, Feb. 1, 1834. — My dear sir: There is certainly nothing 
that I could do for you with propriety and effect that 1 would omit. / cannot, hoinever, wriie 
to Mr. Sioartwmd.* On this suttjct, J luive done so so ojlcn without success, ihxd self-respect km 
compelled vie to desist. I presume, however, that he has his hands full. If the expression of 
my wishes in behalf of your son can be of use, he may show this letter to the Collector. 
Wishine continued health and happiness, I am, dear sir, very truly yours. 

M. VAN BUREN. 



Buying S20,000 in Stocks, on, the strength of a confidential peep at Marcy's Mortgage Message, 

before its delivery. 
[No. 264.] Attorney General Van Buren to ' My Dear Jesse' Hon. Ai,bany, March 22, 
1834. — Mv Dkar Jesse: Please let Nevins and Townsend buy me lOO shares of Moh. and 
Hud. R. R. for cash at 90, and Bost. and Prov. 100 shares at 92| cash; drawing on me at 3 
days sight for the amount. If better tei-ms can be had by taking the stocks two weeks hence 
(buying on time) I should like it better. I fear stocks will rise after Monday, and therefore I 
want these purchases made Monday, but leave it open after. Let the beggars deal honestly by 
me for I lose a deal of money anyhow. i There will be something done here Monday that will 
charm yon Yorkers. Lawrence will run like the Cholera. 

Please ask Bucknor to hand you the amount of differences at which my fifty shares Man- 
hattan stock were settled, and send it to me. Yours very truly, and much better. 

J. VAN BUREN. 



Attorney General (John) Van Buren asks Omnipotence to curse his friend Jesse Hoyt — wishes his 
Rail-road stock sent, with Jesse, to Tophet — and grumbles at the New York officials for not fur- 
nishing funds fw his stock gambling transactions — Hoyt obtains stated preaching at S28 per 
annum, at the Ascension Church — Parke Godwin's opiriion of the Leaders of 'the Democracy.' 
[No. 265.] John Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt, Wall street, N. Y. Albany, March 25, 
1834. — Why God d — n you, Jesse ! buy my stock and draw upon me at sight. You must be 
poor bitches down there, if you cannot raise this two penny sum. If the stock has gone up, 
let it go to H — U.t The Bank will come up against the Safety Fimd Banks, and depress 
stocks — the Governor's measure will eventually relieve the country.^ Yours truly, 

J. VAN BUREN. 

♦ There was evidently the best possible understanding establishf d between Mr. Swartwout and the Albany 
Regency as early as 1835, for in that year and 1836, Marcy, Wrisht, Croswell, J. Van Buren, Corning, &c., are 
liberal in ilieir letters lo him, recoinmendiii!; candiilates for his Hospital. Seymour and many others thus got 
places. On the 23J of March, 1836, Edwin Croswell recommends Barnum Whip|ile to his " must favorable con- 
sideration"— assures him that liis (W.'s) '• pecuniary circumstances render it peculiarly desirable as this time," 
that he should be admitted into Swartwout's Poor House— and thus sums up his character—" His political quali- 
fications are equally unquestionable ; beine; a uniform Republican of the Old School." Mr. Attorney General J. 
Van Buren thus endorses Whipple on the same sheet: " Samuel Swartwout, Esq.— Dear Sir— I fully concur in 
the foregoing [Croswell's] recommendation of Capt. Whipple, and as he is a very clever fellow, to boot, 1 hope 
you will be able 10 do what he asks. Yours truly, J. VAN BUREN." 

" Albany, March 23d, 1836." 

t Mr. Hoyt got along more quietly with Van Buren's knavery than with that of some other persons. On the 
25th of February, 18311, he wrote lo Levi Woodbury from the Custom House — " Mr. Price's ton has published, in 
the Courier of this morning, a letter from his father, which I have not read and do not mean to read. 1 am 
quite tired of ' the rogues and roguery.' " 

On the 8th of November, 1839, he wrote as follows : " B. F. Butler, Esq., U. S. Attorney — Sir : Do not fail to 
put the case of Harvey A: Slagg in a position lor a new trial. Several merchants have been to me, who art per- 
fectly outrageous at such a violation uf all law and sertse. I think I could safely swear to newly discovered testi- 
mony, so as to get a new trial on that ground. Mr. Riissel has stated some fuels to me ihat .-ire new. Think of 
this point. I am so mortified anil vpset at the result. IWILLLEAVKNO STONE UNTURNED TO PUN- 
ISH the party who would attempt to overturn all law and morals. Resply. J. IIOYT, Collector." 

i Mrs. Janiraon tells ns in her Summer Ramblc.i, ihat a Baptist Preacher, whose church she attended in Detroit, 
and who evidently wanted to steer clear of olienditig hot and foolish pariisans, made an acute prayer for John'e 
father, viz : thai " if Mr. Van Buren were a good man he might be made better, and if a bad man, that lie might be 
speedily regenerated." Perhaps if he hud been lavored with a pee)) at John's correspomlencc, he would have 
omitted the 1/ altogether, as applied to the junior. Mr. J.V. B.'s monstrous impiety appears lo have shocked 
t>ven the impenitent Hoyt about this lime, and partially effected that which even the Pious B. F. Butler's calls 
iiave failed in— as witness the following receipt—" Mr. Je.s.«c Hoyt— To the Church of the Ascension, Dr. To 
Rent of Pew, No. 38, 1 May, 1B34, to 1 May, 1835, $28. Received Payment, &c. 

WILLIAM DONALDSON." 

^ Relieving the Cobntry. — The junior Van Bureu refers hero to Marcy 'e Messiige of the previous day, [March 
24, J advising the people lo niorigage tlieir farm-, and lend I he safely fund and pel hanks the other six millions, to re- 
lieve the country. Mr. Parke (iodwlti, of ihe N. Y. Customs, has given an honest ojiinion abotit relieving the 
country, which w« copy from his news[)Bper, The Pathfinder, of April 22, IHiS. Electors of New York, is it not 
tnicl Read aa4 judge. Uudwiu speuks tbe ktoguage of a true patriot, a luan who felt for the distresses and 



EDWIN CROSWELL PARKE GODWIN. DEMOCRACY. 261 

Buy the Standard of Hoiie for S30,000 — CrosvKll puffs Marafs Six Million Loan Message — 

talks of bank patriots and, selfish monicd men — imagmanj distress, and stock not to be sold! — but 

will do to tuLk about — Jackson tf« Co.'sicn million ba7ik scheme smothered as impolitic at the time. 

[No. 26G.] Edwin Croswell of the Argus to Jesse Hoyt, New York. Albany, March 

23, 1831. — My Diar Sir: If t/ie Simlard can hi purchased of Mr. Hone, unincumbered, for 

S20,000, our friends ought not to hesitate to get possession of it. Aside from the importance 

of the step, politically, it could scarcely fail, if managed with reasonable tact and economy, 

to prove a matter of pecuniary profit. I do not think of any one precisely qualified for the 

charge of the paper, who is at this moment free from engagements of another sort, but I have 

no doubt the man may be found, and soon, if our friends will take the refusal of it for a 

given period. 

You have undoubtedly read the Governor's message. Allow me to ask your opinion of ill 
The Bank and opposition press gros.'^iy misrepresent the proposition. That was expected of 
course. The Bank has produced the "distress" and its incendiaries have contributed to it ia 
all possible ways. R,eal or imaginary, it is their only hope. Hence any proposition, calcu- 
lated to produce relief either by inspiring confidence, or by providing means, is their bane, 
and will he fought and lied dowii, if possible. But I am satisfied the project will be approved 
by the legislature, and by the people, and that it will result advantageously to the pecuniary 
and political interests of the state. Attempts will be made by the bank patriots and by selfish 
monied men to decry the stock in the foreign market. But rely upon it, IF ANY SHALL 
BE EVER ISSUED, it will find a sale without difficulty. 

sorrows of the poorest of his countrymen. He is the son-in-law of Wm. CuUen Bryant, and were all the offices 
in Lawrence's dK|iartrai'iit as well bestowed as his was, by Van Ness, who is there that could complain ? 

[From the Pathfinder, by Paike Godwin.]—" It [meaning the democratic party] has talked until it has not only 
exhausted its bieath, but Its life. What is it doins; to carry out its priuciiiUs ? What leal vitality is there in 
any of its pniminent measure.s 1 Whiit genuine manhood in iiny of its prominent men 1 Is it not, at litis mo- 
ment, a grand imp"Sition and falsehood ? Is it not a vast collixiive deatJi's head, an illusjcjn, a deceiver, -a. A. 
aiiti-chrisi 7 We ourselves answer these questions in the afiiiniative. We dn so, because we conscientiously 
believf that our politics and our political parties are slupendiius and cruel humbugs. The democratic partj, par- 
ticularly, is liable to this ci.arge, because it piofefses to be f;uiiled by lolty aims. Its ends are rij;ht, but its means 
are delufive. Not that the mass of its members are aware of tliis — not that a whole people would voluntarily 
agree to mislead and cheat themselves — but that the leaders <if the party are hllcd either with ignorance or 
hypocrisy and selfishness. They are either grossly ignorant of their duties, or they know that they are betraying 
the muliitude whom they profess to serve. We impeach them with the fact. We charge them with trifling 
with ihe happiness of millions. We accuse them of an utter want of human sympathy. We«denounce them as 
cheats and pretenders. 

This is strong language, but not too strong to be verified. Let us see. What have the mass of the population 
gained by tlie rscent election ? Why, ihey have di.-missed one set of magistrates to adopt another, who may or 
may not be better. Beyond the few who will get otiice by the intolerant ptoscripiion of their opponents, what 
class is beneriled ■? Has any principle been settled 1 Has any real, positive advancement been wrought in the 
condition of the people, or even in public opinion ■? After all the wasteful expenditure of time and money, after 
a I the parades, junkeltings and speeches, after the declamations of the newspapers and the vociferations of the 
bar-rooms, after society has been stirred to its depths by a fierce e.xcitement, is there a single man who can hon- 
estly say that his lot has been improved by tlie resmt, even so much as one jot or tittle ? Does any democrat, 
in the wildest flight of his expectations, believe that either prosperity, comfort, or elevation has been secuied to 
the peopled Are tliey more sure of employment, more easy in their pecuniary circumstances, better lodged, or 
clothed, or fed, enlarged in intellect and expanded in sympathy, in consequence of the political revolution to 
whiih they have been made to contribute 1 No ! No ! The poor deluded creatures are as miserable and debased 
as ever they were— in the face of all the lying flatteries of political addresses, and all the lieartless mockings of 
political leaders. 

Nay, we go further than this. We will suppose that the democratic party has been sticcessful in its pro 
jects, not only in this city, but throughout the Union : we will suppose that Mr. Calhoun or Mr. Van Bureii has 
been chosen to the Presidency, along with triumphant majoiities in both houses of Congress: we will suppose 
that all the measures for which it contends are carried into practical execution ; we will suppose all this, and 
yet say, that it will not benefit the mass of the i eople in any perceptible degree ! It will hardly secure them a 
single one of their primary and most important rights ! It will leave ttiem as far from the point of true social 
happiness and individual development as tliey are now! They will continue to be as debased, ignorant, and 
Fqualid as they are now ! They will be exposed to as much suffering and as many disasters as they are now ! 
They will still live in nasty and pestiferous houses, in crowded and dirty streets : Ihey will still work in shops 
that are little better than styes : they will still feed upon the worst products of the worst markets : they will stUl 
be cut off from many of the necessaries, and all the refinements and elegances of life : they will still be visited by 
want, sickness, destitution, and hastened-death : their children will still grow up in Idlene.'-s, igiioraiico, and vice: 
they will still be denied the right to labor, the right to education, the right to social intercourse : they will still be 
the slaves of the capitalist and the dupes of the politician : still for ever running the same dreary round of dis- 
agreeable and monotonous labor, unsatisfied desires, artificial disease, debasing companionships, cheerless lives 
and hopele.-s deaths ! Political changes may have brought them a brief political improvement; but ah! in all 
the essentials of happine^■s, they will be as meagre and helpless as ever. Politicians ! have you thought of thist 
If you have not, what criminal blind guides you are ? If you have, what infamous hypocriies your impostures 
prove you to have been 7 We .'suggest the question, in the utmost seriousness, to the higher minds among the • 
democrats ; whether for the lasttw enty years, they have accomplished aught worth speaking of for the millions? ! 
Wo ask them, whether they are likely to do anything more, for the next fifty years 1 We call upon Mr. Van P 
Biiren, upon Silas Wright, Samuel Young, Tammany Hall, the Democratic Review, the Plebeian, and Evening Z 
Post, or any organ or advocate of the democratic party, to declare in what respect they hope to improve the con- 
dition of the masses— to what degree and by what means they propose to advance the public happiness? When 
and how and where they are to furnish even a partial exemplification of the working of their boasted (iriuciplest 
They must do this, or be content to receive the withering curses wliicU the long misled and abused multitude wUl 
Booni^r or later heap upon their guilty beads," 



S52 CROSWELL, VANDRRPOEL, MONROE, &C. FINANCIERING. 

So far as we hear from the country, the effect of the message has been favorable, beyond 
our most sanguine expectations. Such is the case here. Moderate men of the opposition see 
and admit the value of the proposition as a measure of relief, and although the party ncws- 
paptn in the service of the bank will deride and assail it, they will not carry by any means all 
their friends with them. Aside from its intrinsic worth, as the best proposition that, '_mder the 
circumstances, could be presented to the legislature, it tnll serve to give confi(knce to our friends, 
so FAH AS THAT IS NECESSARY, and Will put arguments and weapons into their hands. A 
ten million bank was received loith little favor Jicre, in or md. of the kgislativrc, OMd if proposed 
could not hare succeeded. Defeat would haxe given t^o the v^lwle matter a far v:orsc aspect than if 
twthing had been attempted. ' With great regard — sincerely your friend, E. CROSWELL. 

Gambling in the Stocks. 
[No. 267.] Attorney General (John) Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt, New York. Albany, 
March 28 1834. — My Dear Jesse — The pm'chase by N. and T. of 100 Mohawk at 96, is 
very good.' I understand it to be payable in all next week. I shall be in N. Y. next Monday 
(31st Inst.) and theii shall arrange it. Please countermand the order lor Boston and Provi- 
dence • I should prefer not to buy it ; and if it is purchased and can be resold without loss, 
let it be done — anv how, as Lord Grev said, I shall stand by my ' order.' 

Yours very truly, J. VAN BUREN. 

[No. 268.] Attorney General J. Van Buren ashamed to appear jmblicli/ as a Stock-jobber. 

Albany, April 17, 1834. — My Dear Jesse — Nevins andTownsend write me that they have 

bought my Utica Stock. Please get the money for the enclosed, and pay them. / do not wisk 

to correspond with them directly. Let the certificate be made out in my name, and send it to 

me bv some private conveyance, or keep it till I come down, which will be shortly. 

^ Yours verv trulv, J. VAN BUREN. 



The Postscript shoios the future Financier. 
[No. 269.] Attorney General J. Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt, at New Y'ork. Albany, 
June 13, 1834. — My Dear Jesse — With the slender assistance of the above [a draft for S780] 
fortified 'by the enclosed [a check for $31 10], you will, I think, be able (if j-ou will do me the 
favor) to satisfy the following demands — Nevins & To^rasend $391,46— Chester Jennings S250 
— " Young" "VS^ilson S'lOO— Minthorne Tompkins S'70. If it falls short, parcel it out to the 
Cormorants, in* such bits as you may deem most meet to .subserve their several necessities. I 
intend to walk into the Mohawk soon. J. VAN BUREN. 

P. S. I tho't mv stock was bought at 109, was it not? The receipt says 109 J. 

Yaunc Van Buren's father-hiAaw, and Hoyt's brother, Lorenzo, getting rid of less profitable 
Bank-Stock, thi-ough Jesse's agency. 
[No. 270.] Judge James Vanderpoel, Albany, to Jesse Hoyt, New York. Albany, 
June 20, 1834. — Dear Sir — I thank you for the services you have rendered your brother and 
myself in procuring stock for us in the Lafayette Bank. Our portion to be sure is not large, 
taut we console ourselves with the truth of the old adage, that " half a loaf is better than no bread." 
You will confer another obligation upon me to procure the residue of the deposit money, and 
either send me your check, or deposit it in the Phoenix Bank in my name to the credit "of the 
Canal Bank. I send you a draft on the Commissioners for the amount. Jf it is presented on 
Monday the Commissioners will pay it, otherwise it must be dra^vn through the Butchers and 
Drovers' Bank. Respectfully j-ours, J. VANDERPOEL. 

Mem. bv J. Hoyt. June 23. Received $250 from Commis.sioners and sent my check to 
Judge Vanderpoel fur it. J. H. 

[No. 271.] Lorenzo Hoyt, Albanv, to Jes.se Plovt, New Y'ork. July 18, 1834.— Dear 
Brother: The Judge [Vanderpoel] and "myself THINK WE SHALL MAKE NOTHING 
BY HOLDING OUR LA FAYETTE STOCK, and therefore, annexed, send a power of 
attorney to sell it. Please have it done, and send your check to th6 Judge for the amount. 
Yours aflectionately, L. HOYT. 

'• July 21, 1834. Sold lor account of Jesse Hoyt, Esq. By Nevins & Townsend, 25 shares 
La Fayette Bank stock at lOU $;2.537,70— le.ss commission i per cent, ^6,34— $2531.16— Less 
90 per cent, unpaid, 2250=S281,16." 

A silk stocking Democrat. — " We have to be a little vulgar these Jackson times." 

[No. 272.] James Monroe, Esq., to Je.sse Hoyt, 42 Wall street, N. Y. Ballston Spa, 

July 'it, '34.— Dear Hoyt: A Virginia friend, like all the rest of them who have not played a 

part in Wall street, do not know and iriU nut karn tlinl wlien a note or draft is due, tliat it 

either has to be paid or protested. When I left N. Y. I made no provision fi)r the payment of 



J. VAN BURKN. DUTEE J, PIERCE AND R. I. POLITICjs. 253 

a draft oii me lor S'1550, drawn by a Virginian, thinking that he would thml:. and act so far as 
to put the mone}' in bank to meetthe payment. Not so — the draft had to be paid, and like 
Ward's notes, or rather my notes in his ia\-our dlenthj overdraAvn my banlc account which my 
agent made good by loan from my friend H. Ogden of tiie Custom House. Now, if you can 
conveniently, and if you cannot conveniently, then vou must put in bank for my account the 
S'lOOO as early as the morning of the 27th inst., as 1 shall send a check to Ogden for that day. 
He -is a s'ood Jacl'son man, and perhaps wants no money, but this you can ask him. If my 
friend from Virginia puts mi/ money in Bank, I will send you a check for the S'lOOO at once — 
this he may -s^Tite me to-day that he has done. You can have the money again in a few days 
at anv rate. I knovj it is riil^ar to attend to mimry matters this hot vxather, BUT WE HAVE 
TO BE A LITTLE VULGAR THESE JACKSON TliVIES. 

No news here. Let me hear from you. If wit would like to make a little money o-ut of Sara- 
toga, let me kiioi'i it. I tell yov, if must go down. I may join yon . When does Glover and 
Ward come up? In haste, 3'ours truly, J.MONROE. 

-1 Beggar — Can you get bets? — Perish C. P. C. Beardsley. 

[No. 273. J Attorney General John Van Buren to J. Hoyt, N. Y. Albany, Aug. 29, 1834. 
My Dear Jesse : For G — d's sake send me my over coat — my underclothes are all worn out, 
and I'm a beggar. Let it be taken to Wheeler's, who will send it to me. Can you get any 
bets on Governor, even 1 We shall lick tJie dogs so in this State that the ' Great West' will 
hear the howling. Yours truly, J. VAN BUREN. 

N. B. Our brethren in Oneida are all 'with one accord united' — look out for a tall majority 
in O. (1) *' Perish C. P. C. Beardsley' (2) will be re-elected by 1500 majority. 

'/ iiiust have a shy at the Boys' — a Stockjobbing Epistle. 
[No. 274.] Attorney General John Van Buren to J. Hoyt, (Albany,) Sept. 5, 1S34. — My 
Dear Jes.se — Please let Ncvins & Townsend buy me 100 shares of Patterson R. R. Stock 
del'v'r in 60 ds. ns cheap as possible. I must have a s/iy at the boys. Keep the purchased note 
till I see you. i -hall go we.st this afternoon, and return in 3 or 4 weeks. If anything turns up 
in my al)sence i > depress stocks rapidly and seriously, which is hardly possible, sell out ana 
save me from loss. Yours truly, ' "J. VAN BUREN. 



Pearce an the Rhode Island Election — Potter an old fed. in his dotage — Whip the Dank Men — 
Gapernor Francis, a Van Bnrenite of 1st ivatcr — a hint about fcanily connexions, Jcromiis John- 
son like. 

[No. 275.] t Dutee J. Pearce, M. C, Rhode Island, to Jesse Hoyt, N. Y. Newpokt, R. 
I. Sept. 18, 1834. — Private. — Dear sir: Yours of yesterday I have. It our men do not act like 
fools, we can elect our Senator by a decided majority, say a majoritj- of five or si.x. In a vote 
between Potter and Burgess, the vote would probably stand 41 to 41. thus giving to the Gover- 
nor the casting vote in favor of Mr. Potter — but to give Mr. Potter 41 votes, he must get three 
votes in , and this three we are afraid he will not be able to do — and it is moreover 

well understood that if there would be no probability of Mr. P's having a majority of one over 
Mr. B., Mr. B. will be withdrawn and the Atto. General, Greene, taken up, who would un- 
doubtedly beat Mr. P. three or four votes. I think it will not do to run Mr. Potter, who is now 
in his old age and dotage — cannot forget his early associations of federalism and Hartford Con- 
v€ntionkL,is-ni. It is hard lor the Ethiopian to change his skin. Mr. P. will be the cause of our 
defeat, if defeated we should be ; and, if disposed, can put our success beyond a doubt — in other 
words, if he will give up his pretensions where In's friends tell him there is no chance for him — 
and this we must do, and support another man with the same zeal we would support him. If 
we co-uld support him with the hope of success, tee tvoadd give the bank vien a severe whipping, and 
send to the Senate the best man we have, in my opinion, in our .state, Governor [John B.] 

* I'erish C. P. C. Beardsley was the whig nickname to Saniutl IJeKrdsley. of Oneida, who was a violent sup 
porter of the Safety Fund Ijcagiie of Banlis, and an enemy to the I'nited ^StHie< Bank and biai)che>\ He sot it bv 
a speech in Congress, January. Ie34, in wliich he said — " IS'o 1 sooner than retrace our steps— perish the slate 
banks — perish credit — perish commerce." 

t IHUee J. Pearce, an influential lawyer of Rhode Island, was apjiointed liy Miniroe, in ]8-i4, its U. S. iJislrict 
Attorney. He entered the iilth Conirress, in Deremlier, ]i*25, with Tristram Burgess : and John Qiiinty .^dauis 
thus concrHtiilatis him on a re-election to the iMlh Congress, ten years atler, i;i a letter dated Uuincy, ."Sepi. 
7, 1835. " I heartily congratulate you upon your re election to Con?ress--alihous;h upon many important public 
iiieasnres, I ditfered widely in 0|>inion from you in the last Congress ; and although I do not ilatter myself that 
we shall agree much better in the ne.vt, I am yet convinced that the party which has been these two years 
strugglinj.' to break you down, the base conipnund of Hartford convention lederalism and royal arch masonry, is 
so rotten with the corruplion of both its elements, that I hail with joy the victory which you have achieved 
over it; 1 rejoice also that the same people have repaired the injustice done by the same party to Mr. iSprague, 
and have returned him to I'onsiress as your colleague. Of that party, treachery is so favorite an instrument, 
that I have heard Mr. Bursess complain that they have used it even with him. It Is their nature ami their 
vocation. I welcome the result of your election as a pledge that their chalice is rctuniin!; to their own lipa." 



254 butler's wanton abuse of the mayor op PHlLADELPtitA. 

Francis. He can -ceilauily be elected against any man the bank party can name, by a major- 
it}' of liw, reserving his outi vote as the presiding officer of botli houses. 

Mr. Prriiich is my confidential friend, and would support the administraiiim. He is more de- 
voted to Mr. Van Buren tlian anil other vian in Rhode Island. He was my classmate, and the 
classmate of Governor Francis in College, and is also your Governor [MarcyJ's personal friend. 
Mr. Francis is not anxious ibr the place, but / know would run if he would receive tlie support 
of our party. With these prospects before us, it will be too bad to have them blasted — and 
blasted they will be, by Mr. Potter's pertinacity and obstinacy. What can we do? i hardly 
know. I have written lately to Mr. Woodbury fully, in regard to our difficulties, and have at 
times thought I would -WTite Mr. Van Bm-en, and Mr. Wright your Senator, in relation to 
them. 'i^Mr. P. [Pottei'] is binder fj-cat ohlif^ations to Mr. Wright. If Mr. Wright would, 
l^without bringing my name into question, or in any way refeiring to it, urge Mr. P. to with- 
Jl^draw when he finds success hopeless, and throucH all his weight into the scale of Mr. PYan- 
g;;^is, our victory would be a glorious one. Mr. P. Avould rai.se himself in the estimation of 
i;^tho administration, and if he on earth would not receive his reward, some of liis friends and 
i[:^"family connexions may. Truly yours, DUTEE J. PEAIICE. 

Perish C. P. C. Beardslcy no ' Bank slave' only a Van Buren vmnl! 

[No. 276.] Samuel Beardsley, M.C. to Jesse Ho}1;, N. Y. Private. — Washington, 
September 24, 183-1. — Dear Sir : Your favour of the iGth, reached me here to-day. I am well 
aware of the feeling of your bank* merchants, and all other bank worshippers towards myself. 
That is of little moment to me, and less still to the public. I dare not venture any opinion to 
you about mv disti-ict, altliough I believe our political fi-iends hope that it will be lor the country 
rather than for the Bank. Personal feeling aside, I mu.st say that I hope such may te tlie 
result: in other words, I would prefer being a freeman to being a banlc slave. I do not give any 
opinion for my.self about the Disti'ict. I however believe that our friends not only hope for a 
democratic majority in Oneida and Oswego, but they expect one of from 5 to 10 hundred. My 
opinion is, that General Root may have 400 majority in Broome, but that in Delaware he will 
be behind some 800. I presume Governor Marcy will be re-elected by mure than ten thousand. 
In haste yours, 8. BEARDSLEY. 

Va7i Buren' $ Profanity set off by Butler's Piety. 

[No. 277.] Attorney Gen'l J. V. Buren to J. Hoyt, N. Y. P'm'k— " Avon, N. Y. Sept. • 
28" [1834] — franked by "M. Van Buren." My Dear Jesse, — I make use of a frank the old 

man left with me, to let you know that I am abo^it at unhappy a d 1 as you wmdd wish to 

sec — -from, the fear that you have purchased me some Patterson R. R. Stock, on which lam to lose a 
large sum. of vioney. I .see that on Wednesday it left ofl'at 8li, which is 8 or 1) per cent, lower 

than it was when I authorized you to buy for me. I know nothing of the d d stock, except 

that Bremner was dealing in it,t and it had been rising for a month, and I hardly thought my 



* When P;iinupl Bf^arilsley \vr\s elfcted to Congress, from Onoidn, he resigned the office of U. S. Ilistrirt At- 
torney, was succeeded hy N. S. Benton, now Secretiiry of Stale for N. Y., and in ]83(), appointed liy Governor 
Marcy Attorney General. He was a lirni supporter oi'the safety fund hank system, opposed to Yonnp, and one 
of four to l]uy Croswell's three-walled house, out of which job the Kvening .lournal extracted much amuse- 
ment at the expense of the knaves who made the liarfrain. Beardsley entered the senate of N. Y., in 1823, was 
a rigid partisan, thorouf;h for Crawford, and, as Hammond thinks, very honest. Marcy nominated him to lie 
Attorney General, late in 1830 ; anil when a senator, he could not brine his conscience to consent to tlie sendinj 
of Bishop and Kemble back to their constituents. Like W'riiiht, in 1834, he thought that popular ajipeals may 
be made too often. 

1 Butler's Pietv. — .Tohn Van Buren is said to have remarked, when in New York, some time since, that he 
sutiered less for his profanity than Butler did for his piety. 1 anne.x another specimen of the latter. 

It is well known that .). G. Bennett took part with Van Buren, Lawrence, Butler, Morris, Edmonds and Ste- 
venson, in the Glentvvorth alfair of 1841). In the N. Y. Herald, of Oct. 2tilh, we find the report of n N. Y. in- 
di'.'uation meetintr, held, at nixni of the '24th, in the I'ark, David Banks beinfi; its president, and \\'ri|,'ht Hawkes, 
now of Paris, the mover of resolves. Mr. B. F. ButbT was the orator of the day ; anil, had lie really been a 
pious man, his pathetic appeals to God and Providence would have been passed over by me without remark — 
liHt look at the impudence, covetousness, and hypocrisy shown in his letters, which compare with his descrip- 
tion of )iis opponents, and the then mayor of Philadelphia lie said, " that frauds extensive and atrocious were 
practised by the Whigs In 1H38 and 183!), is now aliund.intly proven. These frauds were successful in the lirst 
instance, and nearly so in the last. The reason that they were not so in the latter instance. Is not from the 
want of exertions on their part, but from J):^ the direct interposition of an overruliu'.' Providence. J^ .... 
1 shall do all I can. iindeierrerf by threats of prosecution, indiclnient. or ,issassiii:iiinn, which have been held 
our, to go on and brinjl these perpetrators to justice, even if my life lall in Ihe ellort. I look on this as a special 
iiilerposiiion of that providence — that ruler of truth and ju-<tice, who rules and reigns over oil, and even in this 
lif"! pnnishei the guilty, and brings friunls to light and jainishment. . . . Wlial a frighlful system of fraiul 
does not all this devclopc, on the part olinir opponiMits I Monstrous iu the evircme. .\nd chiefly concoctial 
in and thrust upon us from a neighboring city, the central seat of the monied |io\V(t, and whiih is also the 
liead ipiarlers of the I'nitiil States Hank, and has so long been under its blighting iiitluiMice. Yes, from that 
city came the Hessiins who were to crusti our liberties, and destroy the freedom and purity of our institutions. 
(t^heers.) ^Cy '^f' John Swiit. its mayor, (great <uitcry,) the chief magistrate of the second city in the United 
iCf Slates, was the wicked and willing agent and participator in forwarding these stupendous fraud:, and in 
fcir conniving at llii; contemplated liainls of 1811J. (Tremendous outcry.) And by liis control over his police 



HOYT AND VAN BUREN'S DEMOCRATIC BETTING. 255 

buvini? wotQd knock it down forthwith. Perhaps it will go still lower, and may be worth 
nothing for all I know. If so, and if I o\ra any, sell if you think best, and let me lose the 
present difference. If I get out of this job, you may consider me " '^^cjiarged cured as the 
Cholera reports read. Yours ever truly, J. YAJN liUKli,i>l. 

Jifse Hoyts and John Van Durcn's Bets, Sept. and Oct., 1834. 
[No 278 1 I have compiled the following statement from Mr. Hoyt's memoranda of 
his bets, on his own and Jolm Van Buren's account, previous to the fall election in New York. 

With James Jfa'son Webb.— $500 on Governor (Marcy vs. Seward), evcnr-$oOO on 7000 
for Marcy— S50 lo S25 against Verplanck's nomination for governor— $50 on Cambrelcng 
— S250 on MemlxTs of Congress in N. Jersey- S250 on Governorof Ohio— $250 on Governor 
of N'^w York— $100 each, on 3, 4, 5, 0, 7, and 8000 majorities for Marcy— $50 against 'JOO 
majority 1st ward, N. Y.— $1000 on 750 majority for Congress in city ot N. Y.— $1000 on 
1250 majority for governor, in do— total $4500. , ^, , 

With Geo.F. Talman.— $100 to $200 on Marcy— $50 on Beardsley— $50 that Marcy does 
as well in Moirtgcimery as in 1832— $50 that the whigs would have 2250 in Washmgton Co.— 
$200 that Young and Cramer weuld be elected— $200 that the wlxip would not elect M.C. s in 
]S[ Y city— $100 on 7th district— $10 on Marcy— $100 ag'st $200 on Lucas as governor, in 
Ohio— $iOO each on 6, 7, and 8000 majorities to Marcy in N. Y.— $100 each on b 7, and 800 
majorities tor Marcy in city of N. Y.— $10 on majority in Ulster Co.— $.50 on 250 for Gover- 
nor in 14th ward— $50 on New Jersey Congress ticket— total $1570. 

WUh Alexander Hamilton, on Governor, $250. ^^. ^,«„ o,->/.« 

-With Brcmner —on Governor $500— on Members of Congress $25— $100 on 2000 

majority for Lucas in Ohio— a hat ($10) on governor— $500 on 5000 maj. tor Marcy— total 

SI 135 

With D S Jones,— $\00 on 15,000 whig gov.— $100 on gov. even— $25 on each 1000 un to 
6000 on whig majority in N. Y. city— $25 on each 1000 whig maj. in state ol N. Y.— $200 to 
$100 that Scwar' would not have 5000 majority— $700. ^,n,-v.x,,.. 

With Moses]- Grinnell, $100 on 5000 maj. for Marcy— with John A. Kinsj;, $100 that the 
hunkers would beat Stilwell 750 in N. Y. State— with Ellsworth on Beardsley $25— with G. W. 
Bruen a hat ($10) on Marcy— [Josc^^A ?] Kernochan $50 on Beardsley— with if. K i7r;-c;/. 
$50 on governor, and 2 bales of cotton ($90) on city M. C's &c.-with £7. Curtis xhsX Geii 1 
Root gets no majority in Broome Co. $25— with same on governor, $100 against $200— with 
Dudhy Seldcn on Beardsley &c. $100— with John Hone $150— with Thnddcus Phelps,3 cases 
of champaigne, and cash $50 on Bergen— with T. Carpenter, wheat, wood, hams and apples 
S44_with H. Ketrhiim, boots $7— with John C. Crugcr $150 on fall election- with J. L. Joseph 
$200 on Lucas of Ohio and on Congress— with Draper $100 to $200 on majority ot Congress^ 
from Ohio and $100 on assembly in do— with J. G. Pearson $100 on legislature ot Ohio— with 
Geor'^e S. 'Dou^hti/ on 750 average maj. on Congress ticket in N. Y. city $200— with John 
Duer a suit of'clothes $50, on 10th ward— with O. Moran $100 on Congress maj. in N. Y.— 
wilh'jacob Little $100 on 5000 maj. for Governor Marcy— with CterZcs L. Livingston, ihal 
AUe-hany and Orleans would not both be against V. Buren and Co. for governor $100, Oct.. 
6th— increa.sed to $'250, Oct. 2Gth— another bet $100— with Christmnss, a ham $3—2 cases ol 
champaiffoe with G , on Ohio election— with Cornelius Bogert $50 on Beardsley. 

With J Blunt —$100 on Gov. of Maine— $100 on Gov. ot Ohio— $100 on Gov. 

Marcy against Seward— $100 on W. Jersey Congressmen— $100 on aggregate majorities o! 

officers, concocted and marshaUed a system which was successful in cnablins men to come here and jleposit 
S votes in our biillut bo.xes. What is ,lue to these officers of justice, n.en sworn to preserve the course 
Ktice pure, and to do all to detect all oflenders against justice, and to prevent the porvrrsion of the 
CO. r^errr These police officers and this John Swilt, one of the sworn vicegerents of the God of justice 
^ on eahlTall sending on men to vote, and some comins on to vote themselves and ^.vm;; to those sent 
^ the character of thS greatest desperadoes their city contained, sending' them here to be dressed ,p In 
IhTcomnitree rooms, and to vote at all the ward polls, if possible ! I ask y>n, I ask our opponents, I a,U all 
hones en whether' these officers of justice ever'sent to the state prison, the l''-'"';;^"''"'-^' ''^ '^''''''^Xf;,^^^^^^^^^ 
to lirison or the gallows, any men so culpable, so criminal, or so deserviu!; the gillows, as they ^^ ere thein- 
selves" (Loud and continiU;d cheers and cries of '■ No, no.") Mr. Butler denied having asserted tha on Oc 
15 h he would make disclosures that would settle Mr. Van Hureu's election-" yet, [said he,J strange to tell o, 
that very day? Mr. Stevenson walked int., my office and t<,ld me of all these Irands. I then remembered it 
was J^he 15lh r f October. (Cheers.) ^T VVho, then, shall charge n.e with fanaticism or supers^tition, when 
jS^I sav tha I ca see in this the fii^er of the God of truth and justice who onlers all things we 1; 
^ who' will protect the virtuous and punish the guilty? And strong in this beliet.^and undismayed by 
?^ threats, I shall continue to go on, and honestly do my duty to him and my country. H;-.r.,.fo,i 

On this same far-famed ].5th ..f October, at a great National Hall meeting Mr Prn-scott Hall thus dissccte.l 
the demerits of Butler. " This individual, with no merit of his own, but wliat be derives from shadowing 
for'th^?^^ Van Bnren's opinions, whilst he was decrying the credit system was hm.se a borrower of 
S"6 000 from the Manhattan Bank, without any security. He expended it all in sp ecul.ilions 1 h e com 
S called on hm. for security. 'vVhat did ho give 7 Why Chicago ^^'l:^'^:^^'^^^^^:^"^ 
only cost him $200, and that was as much as they were all worth I (Checr^,) and )et he t.ilks about tne 
aristocratic borrowers and speculators on the credit systcj..." 



256 ANOTHER VIEW OF A |^^^DEMOCRATIC ATTORNEY GENERAL OP N. Y. 

democratic Congressmen from N. Y. S. — $100 on 6000 majority I'ur Marcy — $50 on Con- 
gress ticket in 

Mr. Hoyt's handwriting being bad, I may have made some mistakes, but think not. It ap- 
pears to me that these bets, amounting trom $12,000 to $15,000, are but a part ol'his wagers 
on the election ol' 1834 — but liis other memoranda are less clear. He seems to have begun 
betting early in September, and to have kept on daily till the elections were all over. A reve- 
nue officer told me one day at the custom house here, that J\lr. Hoyt's bets on the fall elections 
of 1840 were enough to have ruined a dozen of men who had not extraordinary resources, but 
he gave me no facts, so I do not vouch for his statement, though very probable. Mr. Hoyt"s 
betting did not enrich him, as witness Warren's letters of Dec. and Jan. next. John Van 
Buren may have cleared through Hoyt alone, on that election, $9000. He had access to the 
whole correspondence of the central junto at Albanj', and the returns by which their gambling 
on the elections M'as regulated. 

[N. 279.] John C. Cruger to Jesse Hoyt.— CharlcstoAvn, Nov. 27, 1834. My Dear 
Sir — On my arrival here I wrote to my brother-in-law Mr. Pell requesting him to pay vou 
tliree hundred dollars 150 for yourself and the same sum for Mr. Wilson. I send this letter by 
the steam packet as it Avill probably be in New York as soon as that. When you receive the 
S300, please pay the 150 to Mr. Wilson whose bet is the same as yours. Although the result 
of this election must be very agreeable to you, I cannot congratidate you, for I trast that you 
will look upon it as a source of regret before many years. 

I am truly yours. JOHN C. CRUC4ER. 

Sneers at. Ihc poor WMgs — Bd iip to $5000 — Marcifs Election " as sure as G — d." 
[No. 280.] Attorney General J. Van Buren to " My Dear Hoyt," N. Y. Aleak v, Oct. 
7, 1834. [Tuesday.] — My Dear Hoyt — They say " the blood of the mart}Ts is the seed of the 
Church," and heaven Icnows I have been freely tapped in the good cause. THE REM. [re- 
moval] OF THE DEP. [deposits] cast me a fortune, and now i don't see but I must lose anotlier 
hunk of my little earnings. 

My impression is that Stocks will go up till Election, and fall immedic^tely after. If the poor 
Wkigs could carry a Constable somewhere and get up a Jubilee, stocks would rise. New Jer- 
sey may go for them, and give them a fdip — but Penna. will knock them stiff" next Aveek — so 
will Ohio — and so will N. Y. 

If you could get the difference bet on Marcy, I should say " Sell by all means," and any how 1 
don't know but you had better sell. Do exactly as you see iit. I shall be down belbre it falls due 
probably ; meantime I should be most particularhj obliged to you, if you, can get me an even let 
against Marcy to any amount kss than FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS. 1 think I would bet 
$100 on each lOQO majority up to 5000. I would bet $1,500 against $1,000 on an even election. 
I consider Marcy's election, by fro)u 7,500 to 15,000 majority, AS SURE AS GOD. 

You know best how mucli ihc Patler.son is worth, ancl you must do exactly as if it was your 
own, and I shall be satisfied. Make me some bets if possible. Yours, truly, J. V. B. 

P. S. The Whigs may gather pluck after some meetings or some things. 

Wiigcrs, letting, speculation — Boston and Providcyice — Ntd Livingston. 
[No. 281.] Attorney Gen'l J. Van Buren to J. Hoyt, N. Y. Albany, Oct. 12, 1834.— 
My Dear Jes.se — I should think you right about selling the Patterson, if it will not do to 
hold. By the looks of Webb's paper, {although it is intended no doubt to operate on New Jer- 
sri/,) the opposition gained confidence. Con you- tempt them icilh A WAGER on 3, 4, and 
5d6o Majorities; $200 on each or $500 oh $4000? If neither of these can be got to- 
morrow, BET them $500 on 5000 majority. There will bo no betting ajtcr to-morrnic. Save 
the order for Bost. and Pro\-. open ; the Moh. is all right. We have nominated a strong 
ticket, tho' Ijivingston (Ned) is the Assembly man, contrary to all expectation. Yours 
ever truly, ^ " J- VAN BUREN. 

' Don''t be UMasy,^ Jesse, go ahead ! Bets on Marcy and Lucas of Ohio. 

[No. 282.] Same to same. Albany, Oct. 14, 1834. Don't be 'uneasy' Jesse; go 
iihead. I wrote you by Sunday's l)oat: but I suppo.se as there was no mail the letter mis- 
carried. 1 think .stocks will fall ihis week. Sell if you think best. 

Can ymi gci BETS on three, Ibui-, and five Ihousanii majority foi- INIarey. two hundi-ed dol- 
fars on each '! if not, I will bet live hundred dollars on lour Ihousaiul; ]ierhaj)s, if we lose 
New Jer.sey, you can get this. 

Jfvou can't do better, I slumld. like a bet ef three hundred dollars on free thtnisond majority fa' 
Mora/; unless we lose N. J. : in that event I will wait to get better terms. "\'ours truly, 

J. VAN BUREN. 

P. S. I WILL BET on live tliou.saud majority for Lucas in Ohio. 



MORE MOCKING OF THE TRUE DEMOCRACY. 257' 

[No. 283.] Senator Tallmadge to Jesse Hoyt, at New York. Po'keepsie, Oct. 14, 
1834. — My Dear Sir : I received your letter of the 11th, and had an interview with Judge 
Ruggles, who holds the Patnam circuit this week. He will talk with the genllcmen referred to 
on the subject mentioned. Such an inteivicw will have more effect than any thing else. Every 
thing looks well with us. We have renominated the " POKER" for Congress. Our whole 
ticket is a strong one ; we anticipate a greater vote than in 1832. 

Yours ti-uly, N. P. TALLMADGE. 

Patterson Railroad. The Setting Ring. S500 on Marcy. 
[No. 284.] Attorney General John Van Buren to J. Hoyt, N. Y. Albany, Oct. 15, ' 
1834. — My Dear Hoyt — You have worked the Pattenson Rail Road very well. I am shocked 
at the shares only being $50, having become reconciled to at least double the loss. Tell Wil- \ 
son that I have an impression that he promised to invest S500 or so, for me, provided I kept \ 
out of the 'betting ring,' so as to encourage the enemy to give him a fair chance. If I am j 
right, and even if I am not, I count upon his nobility to spare me S500 evtn on Marcy, out of i 
his big investment. I shall be in New York the last of the month — let me know what W. | 
says. Youi's truly. J. V. B. ( 

P. S. I dont care to bet on 5000 majority for Marcy just now ; if it is not too late to back 
out. 

Van Buren pities the poor Whigs — thinks they mil change their names. 

[No. 285.] Martin Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt, New York. Kinderhgok, Oct, 21, 1834. — 
My Dear Sir: I send you with the greatest pleasure the letter you desire for our friend Phelps. 
I have been here for a few days where the Enemy is using very desperate efforts. I almost 
begin to pity the poor Whigs. Their next cognomen will be Democrats — remember what I 
say. I think you ought at some of your meetings, to call upon them, as our friends have done 
in Philadelphia, to give notice by what name they mean to pass next year. In haste, very 
truly your.s, \ M. VAN BUREN. 

Van Buren introduces his friend Clay to his friend Hoit. 
[No. 286.] Vice President Van Buren to Jesse Hoit, New York. Washington, Nov. 
22, '34. — My Dear Sir: I take much pleasure in making you acquainted with my friend the 
Hon'ble Mr. Clay of Alabama [Clement C. of U. S. Senate,] who makes a short visit to New 
York before the meeting of Congress. I laiow it will give you pleasure to do what you can 
to make his stay in New York agreeable, I am, dear sir, very truly yours, 

■^ M. VAN BUREN, 

Old Le Foy, Die Auctioiieer, nominates Governor Marcy direct from the N. Y. Custom House! 
[No. 287.] In a letter signed by Cornelius W. Lawrence, Thomas Herttell, John Lori- 
mer Graham, and George D. Strong, addressed to S! Svi^artwout, dated 8th Dec. 1834, at N- 

Y. they .say: " Mr. Le Foy from that time to the present has been an active, zealous, and 

efficient advocate of democratic principles, and has very materially aided in sustaining the pre- 
sent administration, and we believe ihat no individual who has been selected as an Inspector 
of Customs has presented stronger personal or political claims to your favourable notice." 
That honed and steady patriot, Wm. M. Price, thus adds his testimony (Dec. 10, 1834). "I 
am not acquainted with any individual who presents stronger personal and political claims 
to your consideration than Mr. Le Foy. His appointment would afford great gratification to a 
oi-eat number of vour personal and ■political friends, and confer an especial favor on your-s 
ft;.uly, WILLIAM M. PRICE." 

Le' Foy, an old auctioneer, was installed as a Custom House officer, proved himself a use- 
fixl tool— and, as a pretended representative of Ne^v York democracy, nominated Wm. L. 
Marcy as Governor, at the Syracuse Convention, Sept. 1836. New York therefore had a gov- 
ernor dictated by the Custom House— and when Throop was no longer endurable as a ruler, 
the Custom House opened its doors to him. 

Samuel Swartwout, Esq.— Dear Sir— Mr. George S. Messerve of the 11th Ward is an appli- 
cant lor the appointment of Inspector of Customs. Mr. M. has been A STRONG PARTY 
MAN, and is at present an ardent supporter of the General and State Administrations, and I 
have no doubt his appointment would give general satisfaction. 

New York, April 30, 1835. WALTER BOWNE. ^ 

Selling R. R. Stocks and buying High HeeUd Boots. 
[No. 288.] ' Attorney Gen. John Van Buren to J. Hoyt, New York. Albany, Dec. 17, 
1834.— My Dear Jesse— Please sell me 100 shares Boston & Providence, deliverable in 60 

days, at 107i or l07i. I shall be in New York this week. Can you send an order to 

and KimbaU, No. 3 Wall st., to make me. forthwith a pair of neat winter Boots with heels an 
inch high ; I want them to wear when I shall come to New York, and that will be by Thurss 
day. Yours truly, J, VAN BUREN, 



258 HUNTING IN COUPLES. lOBBYING. CLUTCHING THE SPOILS. 

Hoyt's Deersldns — Jackson escapes Assassination. 
[No. 283.1 Vice President Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt at New York. Washtngtov, Dec. 
^ 1834.— Mr Dkar Sir : I am obliged by your attention to my small concerns, and upon men- 
tij'ain'^ the circumstance in the presence ofilie President, he has requested me to ask you to send 
him afsQ a pair of the skins. 1 will pay aU. Yours, truly, M. VAN BUREN. 

FNo. 290.1 Vice President Van Buren to Jesse Ho)^, New York. No date (1834.)— 
Dear Sir: I forgot to say to you that the President cheerfully accepted your present ol the 
skins, and to make you my acknowledsrments fjr your attention. The President is in ftae 
health and spirits. His escape was parfictly miracilous. 

Providence lugged in witk Providence R. R. gambling.— McKoun <^ Van Buren's happiness is "-to 

do anijbody's dirty work." 
[No. 291.1 Albany, Dec. 30, 1834.— Dear Jesse : Enclosed is your note. If the order 
to Nevins and Townsend to sell me 100 shares Boston and Providence at lOTi to \ at 60 days 
and Interest should not, providenlially, have been countermanded in season, I take it they have 
effected the sale : if so, let them close it at the present prices, so that I may recuperate a small 
portion of my losses. tt .-ivt t^ttot-ivt 

Is Leggett wicked or crazy 1 Yours truly, J. VAN BUREN. 

P S I have formed a partnership in law with Col. McKoun : one of us will attend all the 
Courts', and we shall be HAPPY TO DO ANYBODY'S ' DIRTY WORK.' J. V. B. 

Speaker Livingston invites E.z-Comnmsioner Hoyt to join tlie Lobby. 

[No. 292.1 My Dear Hoyt : The U. and Schenectady rail-road passed our House this 
mornino-. I h'avc just inquired of De Graff his opinion of its fate in the Senate— he is not con- 
fident of success, but thinks, with a full Senate, it may pass. As this is a matter of some impor- 
tance to yourself, I loould advise that you come up and lend a helping hand to those already engag- 
ed in carrying it through. Yours, C. L. L. 

[No. 293.] Van Buren's Pet Financier, Collector and Stockjobber, at fault. 
Two Notes— Jolui Warren, Broker, Wall street, to Jes.se Hoyt. " New York, Dec. 27, 1834. 
—Dear Hoyt: You will find by the enclosed account, made up to 21st inst., a balance due us 
of ft'2997.24 cts. Will you do us the favor to have it settled 1"—" Ncav York, Jan'y 12, 1835. 
—Sir • Not having received the balance due our late firm, I feel myself bound by the regula- 
tions of our Board to hand in vour name unless settled by lOj o'clock, to-morrow." 

[Thus stood the successor of Swartwout in 1835. In a few months thereafter, through Van 
Buren's influence, he, his friend Butler, and their comrade W. S. Coe, were the hoard of Com- 
missioners to examine into and settle all claims relative to duties, arising out of the great fire 
in New York ! ! !] 

The Madness of the Merchants and Auctioneers— the Victims of the Panic— To tlie Victors belong 

the Spoils ! 
[No. 294.] Gov'r. Marcy to Jesse Hoyt, N. Y. Albany, 26th Jan'y, 1835. Private.— 

My Dear Sir I received your letter this morning on the subject of L. M. M. It is proper that 

Mr M. and all other office holders in N. Y. whose feelings or whose conduct has gone with 
the T-ri-^s should be fully apprised of my situation in relation to their appointments, and that 
they should be nxade sensible that they have contributed to bring about a state of things which 
prevent me from doing towards them as I have done heretofore and should under other circum- 
stances do now. The principal auctioneers partook of the madness and infatuation which la.st 
year seized the great ma.ss of the Merchants— they aided in giving success to our opponents in 
the Common Council— they countenanced and .some practised the proscriptive policy of that 
body —turned away their clerks, carmen, &c.— upheld the course pursued by the Wig naper-s— 
and cheered on the Common Council in sweeping the decks of all our political friends. The 
very men who have been proscriJ)ed in N. Y., with the expressed or im])lied approbation of 
those who wish reappointments, now surround me in great numbers, asking the places and 
commissions of the proscribcrs. What shall I say— what ought I say to these applicants'? 
Shall I send these victims of proscription, and victims of the panic, home, empty handed, to 
be"- employment of those who have deprived them of it, and give commissions to those who 
are the authors or even the silent approvers of the course pursued by the Common Council 
and the panic makers ? If I had but one hour of official life to live I should consider it my 
solemn duty to employ it diligently in protecting my political friends from persecution. My 
friends in N. Y. ought to look at both sides of this question before they advise a course of 
liberality which would be injustice to firiends, and, as past experience shows, returned with in- 
gralUAiL. Yours, &c., W. L. MARCY. 



AARON BURR NOMINATES ANDREW JACKSON. 25S 

BUas WiigU appoints a very suitable Lmvi- Agent. 
[No. 295.] Governor Silas Wright to Lorenzo Hoyt, Lawyer, Albany, Canton, 11 April, 
1835. — My Dear Sir: I believe I some time since appointed you MY LAW AGENT in 
Albany. I cannot say now that I shall have any thing for an agent to do, as 1 have little 
expectation of doing any thing as an Attorney while my annual absences are so long. I wish 
you, however, to present the enclosed papers to one of the Justices of the Supreme Court, and 
get an order allowing to the clerk therein named the time shown to have been employed in 
classical studies, and then that you would file the papers, and send me copy of the order I 
am, very truly, &c. SILAS WRIGHT, Jr. 

Andreio Jackson' sjirst nomination as President, by his Old Associate, Aaron Burr. '• 

[No. 296.1 From the Memoirs of Aaron Burr, vol. 2, page 433. Extract from Burr's 
letter to Joseph Alston, governor of South Carolina: 

New York, November 20, I8l5. 
'A congressional caucus will, in the course of the ensuing month, nominate James Monroe 
for President of the United States, and will call on all good republicans to support the nomina- 
tion. Whether we consider the measure itself, the character and talents of the man, or the 
stale whence he comes, this nomination is equally exceptionable and odious. I have often heard 
your opinion of these congressional noviinations. They are hostile to all freedom and inde- 
pendence of suffrage. A certain junto of actual and factitious Virginians, having had posses- 
sion of the government for twenty-four years, consider the United States as their property, 
and, by bawling ^support the Administration,' have too long succeeded in duping the Republi- 
can Public. * * The moment is extremely auspicious for breaking down this degrading 
system. The best citizens of our country acknowledge the feebleness of mir Admiiiistration. 
They acknowledge that offices are bestowed merely to preserrc power and without tlie smallest 
regard to fitness. If, then, there be a man in the United States of firmness and decision, and 
having standing enough to afibrd even a hope of success, it is your duty to hold him up to the 
public view: that man is Andrew Jackson. Nothing is wanting but a respectable nomina- 
tion, made before the proclamation of the Virginia caucus, and Jackson's success is inevitable. 
If this project should accord with your views, I could -wish to see you prominent in the execu- 
tion of it. It must be known to be yaur loork. Whether a formal and open nomination should 
now be made, or whether you should, for the present, content yourself with barely denouncing, 
by a joint resolution of both houses of your legislature, congressional caucuses and nominationi, 
you only can judge. One consideration inclines me to hesitate about the policy of a presevi 
nomination — it is this : that Jackson ought first to be admonished to be passive; for, the moment 
he shall be announced as a candidate, he will be assailed by the Virginia junto, with menaces 
and with insidious promises of boons and favors. There is danger that Jackson might be 
WROUGHT UPON BY SUCH PRACTICES. If Eu opcn nomination be made, an express should be in- 
stantly sent to him' &c, AARON BURR. 

Young Dlenn^rhassett hastens from Montreal to ask an office from S. Swarfwout, his father's col- 
league in the Burr Movement. 

[No. 297.] Harman Blennerhassett, to Collector Swartwout. New York, April 15 
1829. — Dear Sir: I respectfully take this liberty to remind you that I am a candidate for aii 
appointment to any situation in the Custom House which your goodness and circumstances 
will allow you to offer me. As reference to my character or abilities, I beg to mention the fol- 
lowing gentlemen from whom I can submit a written recommendation, should that be neces- 
sary, and will offer any further testimonials you require. 

Robert Emmett, T. A. Emmet, Jr., David Codwise, William H. Harrison, William H. 
Maxwell, Cadwallader D. Colden, counsellors at law; Doctor M'Neven, Broadway; Doctor 
Ludlow, Hudson street ; B. M'Evers, Walter Odie, John Griswold; merchants ; Gerard Beek- 
man, Bleecker street; Robert Stewart, Benjamin Romaine, Hudson street, gentlemen, 

I was born on my father's island in the Ohio, and have spent the principal part of m.y life in 
the United States, with the exception of a few years that I lived in Canada, where I completed 
my education; AND CHERISHING THE HIGHEST SENSE OF YOUR FRIEND- 
SHIP FOR MYSELF AND FAMILY, and with the ardent hope that you may find some 
post in your department in which I can be useful, I have the honour, &c. 

HARMAN BLENNERHASSETT. ^ 



The old Burrite aid-de-camp in direct correspondence with the chief manufacturer of revolt in 

Texas. 

[No. 298.] Collector Swartwout to General Samuel Houston, Texas. New York, 18 

May, 1835. — My dear General, I am most happy to make you acquainted with the bearer, 

Mr. Fortime, my very good and highly esteemed friend. Mr. Fortime has business on hand 

of some importance in respect to the JPelasola grant in your country. Give him all the aid 



^&60 



SWARTWetTT. HOBTSTON, NEVILLE AND TEXAS. 



you can in his honorable and praiseworth)- efforts to settle your delightful Texas. Mr. For- 
tune is intimately acquainted with the details of the Cartiajal purchase. He was a witnessto 
the whole transaction, and will give you all the particulars. Unite loitA him to get vie my 
giant, and, as in duty bound, I will ever pray. I remain yours, my dear ?™^7^1 „ 

S. SWART vv OUT. 

[No. 298.al Major Morgan Neville, to Collector Swartwout, N. Y. Cincinnati, Jan, 
15, 1830. My Dear Swartwout: * * * I thank you for the pledge you give me, of inter- 
esting yourself for me at Washington, * * * My wife, who is a niece of Capt. Heth of 
Richmond, one of Burr's securities, ♦ * * I would have gone to Mexico, but not as 
Charge • 1 know I am better qualified for the station than any man of our party in the west. 
* * *' " I would prefer goin? to Texas, if that province be ceded. Under the administra- 
tion of Jackson I can accept of no minor office— 1 know too well my own claims and my own 
standin<' At the time Clay's feelings were the most bitter against me, a Senator high in his 
confidence pressed me to accept the Charsre-ship to Sweden at Somerville's death. Ot course 
I declined There is somethin? preposterous in i!ie ofler of a similar office under an admin- 
istration for the success of which I have done as much, at least, as any man in Ohio. A 
Caucus is now holding at Columbus. An officious devil of the name of Watson is gettmg 
recommendations from every source he can. * * * Since the election, abstract Jackson- 
ism (the true spirit of reform) has not been sufficiently cherished in our state ; faction and im- 
pudence have pushed themselves into office. Those among us whom public opmion placed 
in the front rank of the party, have not been consuhed, and the state of Ohio has been degraded 
to make room for the dorification of Kentucky. * * * I have been told that THE OlA) 
BURR BUSINESS has been used osainsl me. Believe me, as in boyhood, sincerely your 
fi-jejifj '^ MORGAN NEVILLE. 

SioartwaiU pai/i court to Jackson hit carrying out Van Buren's views— so far. 
[299 1 Samuel Swartwout to Col. Frost Thorne, Nacogdoches, Texas. New \ ohk 
18 May 1835.— My Dear Colonel: I take the gi-eatest pleasm-e in making you acquainted 
with my friend Mr. Fortune, who socs to Texas, in company with Mr. Bossie, and young Mr. 
Zavala* on business for a Compaiiy in Khich I have an interest. Both these gentlemen are en- 
titled to your perfedt confidence and respect; and I shall esteem it a great favor if you will 
receive them all as my confidential friends. Mr. Fortune was a witness to the Cuabojal afiaii-, 
and wiU give you such information as will enable you to press the justice of my claims. I ^ylst^ 
vouto insist upon the precise tract surveyed by Newton and Strode, as I consider iha^a^yalua- 
ble tract: Do all yon can for mc, and oblige Yours, most truly, SAMUEL S W AR 1 VV O U 1 . 

A qu£cr and curious Epistle, considering its date. 
[No 300 1 Collector Swartwout to Collector Brecdlove, New Orleans. 
(Private) New York, 6 Nov. 1835.— Dear Sir: This letter will be handed to you by 
James Morgan, Esq., who is on his way to Galveston Bay, Texas. Mr. Morgan is deeply 
interested in the cargoes of two vessels which have lately sailed from this port for Galveston, 
with lar<^e and valuable cargoes on board. These vessels have been ordered to rendezvous at 
the southwest pass of the Mississippi, and there wait for convoy. The war between Mexico 
and Texas renders the passage from the Mississippi to Galveston a very hazardous one. Mr. 
■Morgan is therefore desirous of procuring the protection of the U. S. Revenue Cutter as lav 
as the mouth of Galveston Bay. As his vessels have no contrabo.nd goods on board, I have 
thought it possible that you might be able to grant him this favor. Should it be in your power 
to do so you will render the parties concerned a most acceptable service aiidpersonaliy 
oblige SAMUEL SWARTWOUT. 

SwartwouVs interests very large in Texas— Neutrality PraHised. 
FNo 301 1 Collector Swartwout. New York, to Col. Fro.st Thorn, Nacogdoches, Texas. 
New York November 11, 1835.— Dear Sir : General John T. Mason has been requested, bv 
me to deposit with you a certificate or grant of eleven leagues or land in texas which I 
purchased from him, and which he has kindly agreed to procure to be recorded at Nacogdo- 
ches and get the commissioner to natJie a surveyor for. I have also given James Morgan a 
letter or o?der to receive the same, which order I will thank you to honor on presentation, as 
Mr. Morgan is to locate the same for me, and is a citizen of Texas.t 

* VVa.s this the koii of Zavala xvho liad so steadily supported Poinsett, when in trouble in Mexico, and 
whom Santalina finally subdued 1 Yea. He was a land contractor. 

t Thi:. not..' was printed in th« Lives of Hoyt and Butler, with the words Johii Y. for John T. M.yon, and so I 
read Mr. Swartwoi^fs manuscript. Having beon since assured th:it it xva^s Mr. Mason the father ol a Governor 
oAlic iigan, and not Mr. Mas..n the cabinet unni.ter, that .peculated in T.xas iMnds, I offer this .-xplanatum of 
II e all 'ration now made. Can Mr. Swartwout alienate his Texas lands 7 Has lie done so 1 Are they .-.vailable 



TEXAN ESTATES. BEERS, VAN BUREN AND WETMORE. 261 

[No. 302.1 The Same to the Same. New York, 11 February, 1836.— My Dear Sir: 
I received a draft from you yesterday tor 1000 dollars at 60 day.-, Avhich was promptly accepted, 
but there was no letter of advice accompanying it. This I regret, as I do not know what it is 
for, although I presmne it is tor the Texan cause. If so, please to inform me by the return 
post— General Mason leaves this for Nacogdoches to-morrow morning. He goes on lor the 
purpose of locatincr his grants. I have requested him to .speak to you about Carahairs business, 
about which I will thank you to MTite me ; I have paid your third draft, or rather my third 
note due 28th January. Mv interests are now very large in Texas, and 1 pray .you to do all 
vou can to sustain Mason.*" You must not forget that v:c who have hitherto purchased and 
paid for our lands were in a great degree the"cause of your getting so many gallant men 
into your country. I received a newspaper of your place of the 'id January, this inorn- 
ing. and thank you for it. We all feel that Texas'is now Indcpcn(knt But, my dear Sir, do 
not'let your new government run into extravagances, let them confirm all the land grants, 
and it will give confidence to those who inav become purchasers, or residents hereatter. Lee 
them decree that holders in the states shall have their rights preserved, and they \\\\\ increase 
the value of their public domain. Let tliem also authorize tbreigners or people m the states 
and in Europe, to hold real estate as if they were on the soil. Nothing would so tar give cha- 
racter to -i'our country. As you are an old and respected citizen, your advice ought to have 
weight. "Therefore speak. "Do, my dear friend, let me heai- liom you what is my Atogue now 
worth, that is Avhen you shall have made and maintained your independence I Write me 
all about that and ntlier matters. Believe me very sincerely yours, arTWOTTT 



Wdmore and the Board of Brokers. Joseph D. Beers the dishikrested (,.') retired Fmaiuiu: 
[No 303 1 C4eueral Prosper M. Welmore to Ilenrv G. Stebbins, Esq., Wall street, 
\ew York. Assembly Chamber, Ali^.^nv, February 6, 1836. :My Dear Sir: An unttsual 
pressure of business, "resulting from my recent absence, lias prevented an earlier replv tc 
your letter Two of the requests contained in youx first letter cannot well be complied 
With in consequence of my distance from the city. I should have been most happy to 
vi^it vour board, and to possess myself of such lacts as would enalile me successful y to 
defend them. As to the form of the memorial, it is usually the letter eour.sc to ma.ce ir 
brief and moderate iu tone. Show no warmth of feeling— seek to com^mce by the force 
of reason— avoid irritation. This is the best advice I can give you. It might be well to 
-^ct forth some prominent facts connected with the positive good done by the Exchange 
Board; such as the attraction of Capital to oiu; city the confidence gjven t o CaiiUahsts 
abroad BY THE PERMANENT AND STABLE CHARACTER GI\EN TO OLR 
LOCAL STOCKS resuUins from vour dailv qiwfotwns, &c. I would certaiiily advise the 
presence here of some discreet", intelligent aJi'd respectable member ol the board, at an early 
day Much benefit will ensue from complisnce Aviih this suggestion. 1 would lurther recom-^ 
mend the earlv transmission of your memorial. Could you not '^end up a Committee oi 
'hx-ee, AND LET J. D. BEERS BE ONEl / name him as one Mehj to 5'i-«J;^"f^^ ^<^ 
foxh a demtMion, as well from his general .stauding, ffs from tnej,>cm''r,t he has RLllRED 
from the business, and vuuj therefore elniw, to be disinltrested m 4;; orts. 1 write m ex- 
ti-eine haste, in the midst of the most urgent engagements. ' ' ... . . ., 

It will afibrd me pleasure to render you any service in ray power, consistent with other 
associations. With respect and regard, I am very truly --j^p^.^ ^^ WETMORE. 

Patriot Cuttins- joins Jesse, and Jnh,i V. B.. i>i speculating out of the Deposites—Vem Burr,>. 

puis ill for double profits. 
FNo 304 1 Attorney General Jolm Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt, New York. _ Alb.\ny, 
Auc- 93 "1836 Mv De«i"Jksse: On inquii-y I find that I can get one of the BaiiKs in this 
ci v^'to deposit, subject to their own order, such sum as maybe requisite to make the ar- 
rSgemen of 'wWch we spoke, in any Bank in New York (say the F"llon)- tl>a you may 
choose ■ this will answer the purpose provided yo can get the Bank selected to loan you he 
money on vour note. All our Banks are nearly up to their Imiit, and I cannot borrow he 
mone- The Bank here .vill charge the Bank there 6 per cent. int. on the Deposit, and you 
will pay 7 probably. If this meets your vieAvs you will please advise me by return mail. If 
ZlI^eJt!^,iv: me half the profits of tiic e^erpri.c for making inis ar>a.,gcment, please send 
me a %ipidalio>i to that, ejfed, signed by yourself and CMing,whcn ym wnie. 

»,M,n T Ma^oii at ?n earlv a-e, left Vireinia for Kentncky-an.i, many yoars .incL-, reiuovcd irnm tl.ence to 
Mid,'" n Hi^so : Joh^r , becau.e socrelary ofihe territory. of IVl.clujaa : and -'.'-' '^---^..'^.f;!^^^ ':^J^^ 
JL.«t.dhi„Uhe..o.;ernorJI«wa^ 
KS" d'liiXltu '^S^^^:^^!^^^^^^^^^ •" Texa., and l>r..ide.u Tyler appointed him 

j i;om!u3«c->nur under soiiif- Indian treaty. 



262 VAN EUHEN BEGS JESSE TO HELP HIM UP §(^FOR GOD S SAKE 



n 



Your noie might be made payable uii demand, with an understanding that you should pay it 
when our Bank calls on the N. Y. Bank lor the Deposit, which will not be till we sec fit. 

Yours truly, J. VAN BtlREN, 

' Bds on 15 jierjcctlij safe!' — ' For God's sake' secxirc vie the Presidency, snid Martin Van Buren ! 

[No. 305.] Attorney General J. Van Buren to E.x-Commissioner Hoyt. 
Albany, Nov. 11, 183G. — My Dear Hoyt: I'll do the justice to say (and .so does my fa- 
ther), that you have stood the d d lies from Pennsylvania better than most of our friends 

in N. Y. I hope the fright from this dictates the letters l(i us, saying that all of our tickets 
besides Register [I think that's the word], are in danger. I don't believe we .shall lose one. In 
this State our majority will range from 15 to 25,000. Bets on 15 arc per/eetli/ safe. 

For G — d's sake let our friends turn all their attention to New Jersey, and net be caught 
na^pping there, as in Connecticut. Mi/ father wishes me to say so to you. 

Yours truly, J. VAN BUREN. 



A pair of Gatnhlers betting on Elections — the Pcictcr Mug — Cornelius put in Chancery. 

[No 30t}.] Collector Hoyt to Collector Lawrence, [not .sent.] New York, Nov. 21, 
183G. Dear fcjir: As the excitement of the election has in a great degree passed away, it is 
proper that I should pay attention to those incidents in which 1 am concerned, connected with 
it; though perhaps I ought to apologize to you for not having done this .sooner. You will re- 
collect that when 1 was reproached by you for having voted a " split ticket," that I proposed to 
bet ymo SilOO, that you vot-ed what was generally called. " tJu: Pewter Mug Ticket," and that I 
would take upon my.self the burthen of proof to establish the fact. Your reply was that you 
" would take the bet, if I took upon myself the burthen of proof, for you had never told anyone 
how you had voted." I ansv.-ered that it should be considered a bet. There are various ways 
recognized in legal proceedings of making proof and competent proof too in courts of law, and 
tbrums of conscience, and which perhaps did not occur to you when you observed you "had 
never told any one how you had voted." After such a remark, the right more peculiarly be- 
longed to me to select my own tribunal, through Mhich I would make the proof, I volunteered 
to make. That tribunal is a court of Equity, or in other words a court of conscience. In 
England, the country from which we have derived mo.st of our legal forms, certain high digni- 
taries answer bills in Ecpiity upon honor and notvpon oath. I am perfectly willing to place 
you on the same footing, and I therefore desire you to consider this my bill in Equity, 
charging that you voted the ticket referred to, I ask you to answer the charge, and whatever 
the answer may be 1 shall be perfectly satisfied with. I enclose you my check for the $100, to 
your order, which 5^ou will use, if under the circumstances you are entitled to, and if not 
you will please to return it, with your own for an eq\ial amount. 

With great respect, your obedient serv't. J. HOYT. 

Mr. Van Buren, having secured the Presidency, orders tlic Plaindealer. 
[No. 307.] President Van Buren to Jesse Hoyt, N. Y. Dear Sir — Please to ask Mr. 
JjSggcU to send me his paper. Please also ask the editoi-s of the Evening Post to send their 
paper here. It now goes to Albany. Yours truly, M." VAN BUREN. 

[The above was written on a sheet of gilt post, from Washington, Dec, 183(').] 

Remark.^. ■ 

.Mr. Leggett was able and honest; but although he censured Van Buren severely for his 
svcophantic conduct to the south in his inaugural about slavery at Washington, Van Buren 
and Butler persuaded him that they were sincere in their etforls to divorce bank and .state. I 
think it was to gel him out of the way, as much as to please his numerous friends, tliat Van 
Buren appointed him to a commercial mission in one of the South American states. Leggett 
died soon after, on Long Island, in his 3i)th year. Vanderpoel proved himself a bitter oppo- 
nent of the riglit of the sovereign people to petition tlieir hired servants in Congress against 
slavery. Vanderpoel came into the Assembly of New York a Clintonian — his family were 
opposed to the war of 1812 — one of Van Buren's sons married his niece. He was for Van 
Buren in Congress, and is now a city judge in New York. When he ascended the superior 
court bench, a son of Clinton was clerk. Him he caused to be removed immediately, and 
gave the situation to his JMother-in-law, Oakley. Owing to the .sonorous style of his elo- 
quence, he was named when in Congress, "the Kinderhook roarer." 

Aaron the Judge no prophet — Jackson, the Usurers, a.nd the Treasury Circular. 
[ISo. 308.] Judge Aaron Vanderpoel to Jesse Hoyt, N. Y. Washim^ton, Tuesday, 6lh 
Dec, 183G. My dear Sir — Yours came to hand day before yesterday, and had I been more 
of a " down Easter," .so that I could have guessed -wWdt course the opposition would take, I 
•would have answered it more pronrpily ; but all here among ik is doubt and imcertainty as 
to the tack our adversaries are now going upon. 



LA.ND SALES TO ACTttAL SETTLERS. VANDERPOEL. VAN BUREN. 263 

They all seem to be very good-natured and very glad to bee us, but whether the " treasury 
order " will be improved as a means of getting ujp another congies.sional panic remams yet 
to be indicated. The message speaks for itself. It strikes me, that those Mho are now under 
the power or the screws of usurers and shavers cannot derive much consolation from that 
docuvtent. The old Chief is unwilling to admit, that the government has by any act contri- 
buted to the present pressure in the money market. His doctrine is, that it has its origin in 
the mischievous expansion of the paper system, and the mad speculations and overtrading of 
the last eighteen months. You know too that the President is in one respect hkc Ri volutions. 
He -never goes backwards. I will not hazard even a conjecture as to the main point of your 
letter We have as yet no more facilities for accurate guessing here as to the luture move- 
ments of the opposition than you have at New York, and 1 cannot therefore do more than 
subscribe myself youi friend, A. VANDERPOEL. 

The Special Order. Benton. Talking a Session out. 
fNo. 309.1 C. C. Cambreleng, M. C, to Jesse Hoyt, Wall .street, N. Y. Washington, 
I3th Dec'r 1836. Dear H.— I cannot tell vou what will be the fate of the Special Order- 
though it is not a favorite measure with either House. Benton will, however, make a strong 
speech about it, and he has besides strong ground. That question, and no other, will be soon 
decided. We shall consume the session in battles about the Tarili' and Public Lands. 

Very truly yours, C. C. CAMBRELENG. 

A Democratic (! !) Congress encourage the Pet Dank Politicians to buy the Public Lands with the 
Public Money, and refuse to cb:xk speculation at the settlers' expense. Van Buren supposed to 
be patriotic. A talk about selling the national lands to settlers only. 

FNo. 310.1 William L. Mav, M. C, to Jesse Hoyt, N. Y. Wa.shington, Dec. 9. 
1836. My dear sir: I am inclined to believe that a very general disposition exists on the 
part of the friends of the Administration to limit the sales of the Public Lands to actual set- 
tlers : should this be accomplished (and 1 see no reason at present to doubt it) the necessity of 
keeping the Treasury Order in force would no longer exist, and the President [General 
Jackson] would thus be supplied with the best possible rea.son for its immediate repeal. All 
parties, so far as my knowledge extends, deprecate the order, not only as injurious to every 
branch of trade, but as tending greatly to lessen the number of our puUtical friends. A few more 
chano-es in Pennsylvania and our party will be in the minority. How important then, not 
only as it regards the welfare of the coimtrv, but also as it regards our existence as a party, 
that some speedy measures should be adopted to quiet the public mind, and restore confidence 
to the trading part of the community. As yet I have had no opportunity of conversing Avith 
Mr Van Buren on these subjects, and am of course ignorant ot his view's. I am credibly 
informed however, that HE IS OPPOSED TO THE ORDER; audit may fairly be pre- 
sumed that his friends will adopt any course not likely to wound the sensibility oi the Presi- 
dent to °-et rid of it. The plans of the Opposition are not yet developed ; I cannot even 
conjecture the course thev will be most likely to pursue. *****! remain your friend, 
^ " WILLIAM L. MAY. 

FNo 311.1 The same to same. Washington, Dec. 23, 1836. Dear sir: The Trca.sury 
Order will not in my opinion, be repealed; but I think that a law, limiting the sales of land 
to the aotual settler, will be passed. Since I saw you I disposed of a portion of the land I 
.sold to you at .^1000 per acre, in Philadelphia. I am still inclined to .sell five or ten acres 
more; but I would be unwilling to take a cent less than $1000 per apre, ior the whole, or 
any part of the tract. In haste, I remain your friend, WILLIAM L. MAY. 

Solomon SoutMcick's two Characters of his friend Van Buren. 
INo. 312.1 Solomon South wick to W. L. Mackenzie. Rochester, N. Y. Albany, Dec. 
8th 1838.— I hope, my dear sir, that you are now convinced of ^hat I told you in August last, 
that Van Buren was 'heartless, hypocritical, selfish and unprincipled. He is the tool or slave 
of a foul heart and a false ambition, and never possessed a particle of true greatness. I speak 
not from prejudice— I knew him intimately— very intimately, for seventeen years— and never 
knew him to act from a noble and disinterested motive; always full of low cunning, dark in- 
trio-ue and base selfishness. When I told you this in August, you seemed to be surprised— 
but" are you not now satisfied 1 I fear that the leaders of both parties, with but few exceptions, 
are af'ainst the freedom of Canada. This is a sensual, selfish, money-making age. It seems 
to me%ou might have known better than to go to Washington, that sink of iniquity, corrup- 
tion, and British iirfiuence ! Van Buren and his tools are the .slaves of Victoria. 

Yours truly, S. SOUTHWICK. 

[From the Aliamj Register of April, 1812.J 
In the Middle District, we rejoice in the nomination of Mr. Van Buren. We have long 



2C-1 RECOMMENDATIONS TO OFFICE IN THE U. S. CUSTOMS. 

known and esleenied him. He posi^tsses genius, intellic^ence. and eluqiiencc — ha.s lung been 
one of the firmest props of the Republican interest, and with a spirit which will not bend to ser- 
vility or sycophancy, cannot fail to become a distinguished and useful member of tlie Senate. 

^ S. SOUTHWICK. 



Jesse Hiiyt us Van Burois Cnlkxtor of Customs — Henry Ulskoeffcr, ( Ward if- HoijVs Law Stit- 
ile/U, DnjanVs partner {or editor) for the Eiriiinc; Post, Clerk in ike Cvstvm House, and bro- 
ther to our first am lUi/ judge,) Custom House Spi/and. Scandal-monger — 'breasting the storm of 
Wldg'jcni' — how to get raised in the famili/ esteem — the Crocl try-man's Clerk — ' Biyant and 
■mysrlf — Bogss too democratic — Westerrclt, ' thoroiighly hico-foco' — Depei/ster damns Van Hu- 
rcn tj his cost—' Who the devil is Mr. Hoyt ?' — ' the rankest Whig breathing' — a mere drone — 
Geo. A. Wasso'i gets a comrade — Lorenzo Hoyt's rule of secret defamation, put in steuAy operev- 
tion — My tiephcio Rose — Dan. Winshlp and son — ' My brother the Judge'— ' let him be rejnoved' 
— Jio-w to secure a large family interest, 

[No. 313.] Henry Ulshoeffer to Collector Hoyt. [New York,] ITLh March, lb3d. 

MEMORANDUM. 

" George W. Ross has laid before you an application for Clerkship in doors, or the office 
of 7?i.5/7Ci:f.^7-,Avhichev'er shall appear to be at j^our disposal. I have already stated to you (and 
I now repeat it for your remembrance) that he is related to me as ncp/iew (by a sister). He 
has mostly resided in the Seventh Ward, where he kept a ship-chandler's store, as successor to 
my eldest brother, George Ulshoefier. (They were partners at his death.) My brother, in his 
will, directed Mr. Rose to go on with the business and pay to my father and mother the full 
value of the stock at the time of his decease, for their future comfort. Before he accom- 
plished this he became i!/s;ilrenf,h\.}l acted with good faith to his grand-pareiiis, and paid them 
for the stock (the balance due at his failure being .small). He then procured a relea.se from his 
creditors by great exertions, and with, the aid of some friends Avent into the groceiy business 
in Cherry street, which made ' both ends meet,' apparently. Last May he removed hi.s store 
into Coenties Slip, and took a partner, and attempted to do a better business ; but the change 
that came over the business community overset all his calculations, and he has been Avasting 
his 111 :;ans ever since in necessaiy expenses. To croAv^l all his misfortunes, his store took 
fire the early part of March, and his whole stock Avas lost. Though the stock was covered 
by insurance, it had been procured mostly upon credit, and must be paid for; and even if it 
had been otherwise, the prospect of doing business for a long while is but a hopeless one. 
Trade is not likely to revive for a considerable period, and IMr. Rose thinks he must finally 
give up. Under these circumstances, Mr. Rose Avi.shes to withdraw from his business, and 
take such an appointment as will aflord him a livelihood for a fe.w years. He is a democrat 
of our skimp — is pcilinacious in argument, and of good education. ' In the Seventh Ward, he 
breasted the storm of JV?uggery in 1834, and suffered in his business some on ihat account. As 
to his qualifications, I will a.ssure you he is fit lor any of the clerkships in doors — he writes a 
good hand — is good at figures and calculations. As to an out-door apjiointment, he is far 
supi-rior to many Avho are now in oflice. This I well know. Mr. Rose has a wife and one 
child, and is about 30 years of age. As I have before said to you personally, this is an afl'aii' 
which I feel an interest in — and if you can appoint him you will confer another favor 
(among others) on me. as wadl as him. It irill also raise m.c in the esteem of our family, who 
aflect to believe there is no chance for him. My brother the judge, Mr. Jt)rdan and others, 
fuiA'e doubtless spoken to you on this siibject. 

Jo.sEPii Gahmss, with whom I ha\'e been acquainted for years, is applying for the oflicc 
of inspei;tor. He is about 33 years ol age, and was formerly a clerkof { 'olemar the crockery 
dealer in Broadway, A\hcrp j-our wife has purchased China-ware l'i<'quently. Garniss 
boards with my mother-in-law, and ha^ for several years. He Iwards in John street (2d 
Ward). I know him well — tiis politics are <f the right kind. Every day at dinner Garniss 
and I ha\'o a reguJai- i-onversatiou with tlie Whigs" at tabl^, and \ have found him firmly 
and entiiusiastically atta'-licd to the administration. Although I have no personal interest 
iu his ajjjilication, 1 know of no young man I could moi-e cordially recommend to your 
notice, both on account of his poliiics and capacity. 1 place him only next to Mr. Rose 
in the interest 1 feel in his application. Owing to change in trade and the nece.ssity of 
economizing, Mr. Colemar was obliijed to dismiss Mr. Garniss, and every department seems 
to be filled in other ])laces where he has sought for employmeiU. He is a single man. 

Ja.mes Mo.vrok WiNHHip, a young man 19 years of age, applies for a Clerkship. H>' 
is son of Daniel Wiiisliip, huiclier of Fulton Market, and resides in the I7th Ward. He is 
if course a Democrat, as I know Jrom repealed conversations. You have seen liim at your 
house, and can judge somewhat of his merits. As to my own knoAvledge of his rapacity, I can 
say no more than t)iat 1 believe him to be qualified for some situation of small salary. His 
father has contribiitad liberally in monty Pj tlu: Donwcrcttic party, and- it icould be sccimng q 
"large fa.mihj interest for th-> administrfiHov. if tlie appointment could he wade, 



Van buren democracy regulating the political machine. 265^ 

George W. Shourt wants the place of Carimaii to the Public Store in Nassau street 
As he has seen you on the subject, and you know his politics, j-ou can form an opinion of 
ills merit, and the expediency of doing what he Avishes. He has for some time been tlie Cart- 
man of the Evening Post, carrying daily the mail papers to the Post Office. He is a 15th 
Warder, and you can take care of him without any urging from me. 

Edmc.nd J. Gross is an applicant for the place of Inspector. He is of the 10th Ward. Of 
course he is a Democrat. I introduced him to you one day in your office in Wall street. 
He is a married man of about 45 years of age", judging from his appearance. He is a 
lespectable man, and would, 1 have no doubt, fill the place creditably. He relies much on my 
influence in this business, but I have 7w particular interest in his application,. 

William J. Boggs is an applicant for the appointment of Inspector. I am well acquainted 
with him — know his politics to be thoroughly Democratic — and as he depends a great deal on 
what I say to you, I will be candid enough to say that the letters he has laid before you, 
signed by Mr. Cambreleng, Colonel Johnson and others, although entitled to great weight, 
ought not to be conclusive. He took great interest in Mr. Coe's application for the Collect- 
orship, and wrote letters to Washington in his behalf, and with Ely Moore and others, en- 
deavored to defeat your appointment. He is at present a letter-carrier in the Post Office, 
and though / at one time felt disposed to do all I could for him, some things have induced 
me not to urge you strongly in Iris favor. He is in the lOth Ward, and has a family. 
!Mr. Coddington can tell you about him. 

The above applicants are all new ones. 

Of those who are are alreaaij in the Custom House I will speak as follows: 

J.AMES Westervelt is a Weigher, and has spoken to me about his situation. He is 
ihormtghhj loco-foco, and ought not to be removed. There is no objection to his being re- 
tained that I know of He has been in office about eighteen months. Peter Coutant is 
an Inspector, and has been in office about a year and an half. I Ivuow him well. He is 
■ ■ne of tlie firmest of our party. Old Gilbert Coutant is Ms uncle. He has been persecuted 
lormerly by the Whigs, and had to abandon his business in consequence. He ought to be 
retained by all means. He is son-in-law of Daniel Winship. 

Thomas Kirk is a Weigher, and now in ollice. He has not .spoken a word to me on 
the subject of his being retained, but I cannot omit the opportunity, while I am making 
these memorandums, of recommending, cordially, his reappointment. He is a fine old gen- 
tleman, of our politics; and has been a constant visitor at the office of the Evening Post, 
where he frequently discourses on politics — and, of course, his opinions are well knox^m to 
Bryant and myself. He Av^as once of the firm of Kirk k, Mercein, booksellers of this city. 

Joseph Drevfous is now an Inspector, and wishes to be transferred to the French floor 
m the Public Store in Nassau street, where the pay is the same as he now gets, and wnich 
change would enable him (on account of greater convenience in the hours of business) tif 
pay some attention to other matters, and make his income better — or rather enable him to in- 
struct his children in some bi-anches of education. In this store he would be attendant upon 
'he appraisers. Knowing his politics to be decidedly Democratic, I w"oild recommend, it" 
nothing interfered in your opinion, his transfer to the Public Store. He is a good judge 
of French articles, and might be of service in that department. 

Among those who are opposed to the administration, and in office, there is A. S. Depetster 
(weigher). He is a thorough Whig, but has urged some Democrats to speak to you for hiin. 
Look out for him ! He told Mr. Daniel Winship that " Mr. Van Bmen was a damn'd little 
rascal,'' or words to that eflect — and this too very recently. Sajiuel B. Fleming is a Con- 
servative Democrat of the rankest sort. He was a strenuous advocate for Coe's appoint- 
raeni, to the Collectorship — and said before you was nominated, "Who the devil is Mr.Hoyf? 
Who ever heard of liim .'" ifcc. Hexry K. Frost, a Clerk, I know to be the rankest Whig 
v.reathing, and ought to be removed without scruple. George Ricard, an Inspector, has 
been in office several years, and is, I understand, in good pecuniary circumstances, and could 
live without the office. He is from the lOth Ward. He scarcely ever attends our meetings, 
".nd is, in a political point of view, a mere drone. Let him be removed ! 

Henry W*****t, an Inspector, is a drunken beast, and notwithstanding his politics, he 
ought to be removed. This is public sentiment wherever he is laiown. Any one in the 
10th Ward will say so." 

Remarks by W. L. M. — The original letter is in the possession of C. S. Bogardus — the au- 
thor is dead — his remarks are on public matters, and belong to history. Some people say, you 
nmst not tell any bad things done by the dead. Does the Bible say so 1 Are the histories of 
America, France, England, and Ireland silent about bad men and bad actions in cases where 
the parties are dead ? The very first act of the London Times, when the profligate George 
IV. had gone to his last account, was to review his life, and hold him up to the example of 
posterity as a monster, scarcely less wicked than Henry VIII., or any others of the worst of 
England's kings. It is wrong" to speak falsely of the departed ; very xvrong to erect marble 
mausoleums to meaulv ambitious and avaricious men. 



266 WAR WITB ENOLAND WOULD STOF ftEPORM THERE. 

THOUGHTS 

ON 

WAR, TEXAS, SLAVERY, AND OREGON. ) 



I would not have a slave to till my ground, 
To carry me, lo fan me while I sleep 
And tremble when I wake, foi all the wealth 
That sinewa bought and sold have ever earned. 

CowpER's Task, 

Signs of the THmes. — War to crush Reform and uphold Oppression. — England's Complaint in 
1814 — America's in I8l5. — Bradford Wood's accurate Views. — III Treatment of American 
Merchants. — Offers to settle the Oregon Boundary. — IVhy it might to be settled Peacefully — 
Texas Constitution. — O' Connell on Polk, War, and Slavery. — Intellectual Powers and Bravery 
of the Negro Race. — Anderson on the IndiaTis. — Washington, Jefferson, and Randolph on 
Slavery. — The Synod of Kentucky on Negro Bondage. — Van Buren's Bargain with the 
South for his Office. — H'.s Apology for Outrage, Mobs, and Riots, noticed by Leggett. — New 
York for Freedom to all, in 1819. — The Missouri Vote. — The Virginia Slave Trade. — Poin- 
sett made War Minister, and why. — Van Buren's Efforts to prevent Emancipation in Cuba. 
— Polk and Van Buren for, and not for, European Colonizatum, in America. — Cass and 
Alien. — Guizot. — Polk's TreatmeJit of Mexico. — Van Buren's Canadian Proclamation. — 
Channing on Calhoun. — Col. Young on Texas and Abolition. — Wright's Manauvring. — Van 
Buren's Neutrality in 1^9. — On Slavery in Iviea and Wisconsin. — Greeley on Florida An- 
nexation. — [Notes.] Bankrupt Laws and Repudiation of Debts. 

The occtirrence of war between the United States and Great Britain, is spoken of at present 
as if it were an event neither improbable nor perhaps remote ; and the questions of, peace, may 
it be preserved 1 or shall we see two great nations at enmity, contending with each other in 
armed strife ? are of such vast importance, that I think the occasion an opportune one to offer 
.some observations and to state some facts, both as to the risk the country rims of being involved 
in war, and as to the chances of success, and other results should a struggle take place. I 
know, by experience, that when men get angry, and act under the influence of passion, it is 
too late to reason with them for the prevention of mischief Both parties are yet cool and 
calm, on this question ; and having reflected on the matter carefully, I add here to the opinion 
expressed in my widely circulated pamphlet of last September, Ihat peace may and ought to be 
secured ; and that the great interests of society require, that no stop be put to those bloodless 
triumphs which our brethren in the United Kingdom are effecting, under prudent and patriotic 
leaders, whose memories will be sweet in the remembrance of generations yet unborn. If 
it were a just and necessary war waged against a proud and unsympathizing aristocracy 
who had trampled to the ground a patient people, by their enormous taxations, military rule, 
and proud monopolies, in favor of the oppressed, and with good cause of offence, old as I am, 
I wotild travel from Maine to Michigan, to rou.^e the people as far as one man could. But 
when monopoly in England lies prostrate; when its ancient champions now range themselves 
in the ranks of its deadliest enemies; when the cause of the people, that cause for which 
mcthodist and prcsbyterian, catholic and protestant, have so long petitioned the favor of 
heaven, is gaining new and glorious triumphs ; when I see tlie defeated uionopoli.sts comfort- 
ing themselves with the hope of high rents and more delrt, expenditui'c and taxation, through 
a war with America, I cannot range my.self on the side of the ultra lories and bigots of the 
old world, against the eflbrts of the Humes, the O'Connells, the CobJens, the Greys, the Mor- 
peths, and the Macauleys; and although personally speaking, I might have a far greater 
interest in fanning the flame than in endeavoring to tlu"ow water on it, yet I can see so very 
little good, and such a Moscow or Waterloo, as it were, of mischief in the approach of war, 



SIGNS OP THE TIMES — BANKRUPTCY— REPUDIATION. 267 

as things now stand, that I gladly avail myself of this medium, to state my views to those 
whom this volume may reach. 

The signs of the times are not very pacific, certainly. Mexico, it is said, will have a 
monarch from Europe ; Paredes is in power there already ; the annexation of Texas is not 
the settlement of that act for the perpetuation of slavery ; England is arming to the teeth ; a 
military officer, and not a civilian, is permanently placed over Canada ; preparations for an 
onslaught are openly acknowledged there ; the landed interest talk as if war was their only 
refuge from total defeat, in England and Ireland ; President Polk bids America prepare for 
the worst ; the gambling sections of our numerous banking establishments look to a deranged 
currency, with usurious interest, baseless paper, a new national debt, and heavy tajces to meet it 
during the next twenty years, as a national blessing ; others besides R. J. Walker's constituents 
are ready to repudiate ;* many want Canada ; not a few have bright visions of Oregon ; 

* Bankrupt Banks. Repudiation of Debts. — On the ]3lh of January, 1842, a meeting was held at the 
Merchants' Exchange, N. Y.. to oppose the repeal of the bankrupt law, .John I. Morgan in the chair. Messrs. 
Prescott Hall, Sekien, Tilden, WcVean, John \V. Edmonds, and Butler spoke. Edmonds said, that the laws 
are lamentably deficient in not affording due relief to the unfortunate debtor, and guarding against fraud — that 
no civilized community ever invented such a wretched plan as our executions, judgments, creditors' bills, &.c., 
to drain from the juicket of the unlbnunate their last dollar — that, as our laws stand, a man had better be a 
thief and steal, than be a poor debtor. The thief may start afresh in life, the debtor never can. He was for 
including banks, and upholding the bankrupt laws, but for the law whether or not. Butler was opposed to 
the repeal of the bankrupt law of July, 1841. We had got, he said, the English insolvent law system, with- 
out Us general bankrupt law system, but with 26 laws, all varying, in as many states. The insolvent law of 
England took all a man's property, stojjped his business, imprisoned and then turned him out destitute, and pro- 
claimed to be unworthy of credit, and yet expected him to take courage and make money for his creditors. 
tSiich a system was had and had bad results. It was really disgraceful that our laws all tended to oppress the 
honest and unfortunate debtor, and yet do no good to the creditor. Another meeting was held on the 18th against 
the law, and much said on the other side. The greatevil seems to be, that systematic, beneficial legislation, by 
Congress, on this and many othir subjects, especially a general partnership law, seems hopeless. Whether 
too many live by Intrigue — or there is carelessness— or that opposing interests have marred useful improve- 
ments, I know not.— On June 2d, 1840, when it was proposi d to give to the U. S. government the power to 
wind up the concerns of every bank, or insurance, manufacturing, or trading corporation, that stopped payment 
of Its debts, by including such banks, &c., in the bankrupt law, then under discussion in the Senate, Calhoun 
opposed it, but proposed no remedy for hank suspensions by the hundre<l, dozen, or single. The bill authorized 
any creditor vvlio had asked p.ayment of $500, or upwards, due him, to take (jut a commission of bankruptcy, if 
not paid within 15 days, so that the aflkirs of the bank, &c., might be placed in the hands of proper trustees, 
and wound up. There were then, nearly 500 suspended banks, and he would not compel them to pay, or be 
placed under the care of federal officers, to be wound up. It would place too much power in the hands of the 
government, and bring about a political alliance between it and the banks. Mr. Calhoun proposed no remedy 
for the bankruptcy of corporations, and seemed to suppose that Congress ought not to or could not apply one! 

It would surely follow, of right, that if the banks are to he privileged from paying their debts, they shall have 
no power, while that privilege lasts, to coerce their debtors — hut, to me, the Rev. Sidney Smith's reasoning, in 
his memorial to Congress is conclusive. He says ; " Your petitioner lent to the State of Pennsylvania a sum 
of money, for the purpose of some public improvement. The amount, though small, is to him important, and 
is a saving from a life income, made with difficulty and privation. If their refusal to pay (from which a very 
large number of English families are suflfering) had been the result of war, produced by the unjust aggression of 
powerful enemies ; if it had arisen from civil discord ; if it had procce<ied from an improvident application of 
means in the first years of self-government ; if it were the act of a poor state struggling against the barrenness 
of nature — every friend of America would have been contented to wait for better times; but the fraud is com- 
mitted in the profiiund peace of Pennsylvania, by the richest State in the Union, after the wise investment of 
the borrowe<l money in roads and canals, of which the repudiators are every day reaping the advantage. It is 
an act of bad faith which (all its circumstances considered) has no parallel, and no excuse. Nor is it only the 
loss of property which your petitioner laments ; he laments still more that immense power which the bad faith 
of America has given to aristocratical opinions, and to the enemies of free institutions in tlie old woild. It is 
in vain any longer to appeal to history, '.nd to [loint out the wrongs which the many have received from the 
few. The Americans, who boast to have improved the institutions of the old world, have at least equalled its 
crimes. A great nation, after trampling under foot all earthly tyranny, has neen guilty of a fraud as enormous 
as ever disgraced the worst king of the most degraded nation of Europe." 

I think that the dishonest party leaders, in Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and other 
defaulting states, led on by the early example of Van Buren's confederates, and encouraged by the unequalled 
profligacy of his government, had lost all sense of shame. In Pennsylvania, the lust of money, and of office in 
order to get money, is as scandalous as here ; while the feelings of manly pride, and the desire to merit the 
good opinion of the human race seems to be little lelt. Each party appears to dread to inipose taxes, or enforce 
their collection for the payment of just debts, lest the other party should make political capital out of such a 
measure! I must say that Hume's views of the British National Debt — punctual payments of the interest, 
great economy and retrenchment, and a sound currency, with good laws and independent jndsies to do justice 
to all, comes nearer to my views of republicanism than borrowing on your honor, and beggiiring those vvlio lent 
what your wants required. Without a sound currency and a comprehensive partnership law, and a ditterent 
management of contracts and revenue than I now witness, very little good will he etlected. 

The Dutch remonstrance against American Repudiation, was handed to C. Hughes, the agent of the U. S. in 
Holland. To its doctrines, as contained in the following extract, every true American will subscribe. 

" We, the undersigned, bondholders, of North American loans, negotiated of late years, or secured upon 
stocks issued by several States of the Union, confidently take the liberty to invoke your kind intercession in our 
behalf. You are well aware that the engagements entered into on issuing these loans have not been fulfilled ; 
that the payment of interest has been suspended ; that resolutions passed by some of the States have rendered 
these securities almost valutli'ss ; that severe losses have been sustained ; whilst every endeavor to etfect a 
remedy to this deplorable state of things has hitherto proved fruitless. 'J'he doctrine of repudiation, although 
embraced in some quarters, has e.\ciled the just indignation of the majority of the population. Men in eleviited 
stations have ojjenly declared, that whatever the calamity of the times or the malpractices and dila|)idations of 
the banks and public officers, or whatever the disappointments attendant on too sanguine expectations, nothing 
can sanction such a doctrine. The inviolability of engagements, which having no tribunal to enforce them, 
are to be considered the more sacred as being placed under the protection of the national honor and public 
faith, has been warmly advocated in your country itself." 



AN BNSLISH OPINION O? A-MBRICAN BRAVERY. 

there are yet those whom an unfeeling colonial government wantonly and wickedly \VTonged, 
who bide their time ; the Indians are ou hand ; O'Conncll and Ireland will not go lor slavery ; 
France is considered in the interest of Wellington ; and peaceful conventions, whether 
of this state or of the Union, to improve the condition of the people, and aftbrd a bright exam- 
ple to less favored lands, are liateful to those who desire to see the speedy downfall of re- 
publican government. 

Many say here — " War would be a most effective tarifl', to protect our manufactures." So 
it would ; but may not peace and an honest currency supply that, without war 1 Many of our 
manufactures depend on our commerce, and would be injuriously affected by war. War, 
feay some, '■ would put down slavery in llie soutlr and give us Canada on the north, and secure 
Oregon on the west.'' I am an.xious to see slavery put down everywhere, but not to risk the 
peace of the world to eflect it sooner by a few }ears ; and railroads, canals, national prosperit} , 
upright government and universal "education will settle the Canada question more to our 
satisfaction in the long run than seven )ears of strife and butchery. Yes, but it is said again, 
" War would humble England." Are yoa sure of that ?• England is far more powerful, 
united, enlightened, fi-ee, prosperous, and populous at this day tnan she was when she Avith- 
.stood for a series of years, the combined efforts of many n.ations, led by Napoleon, and backed 
for three years, nearly, by the United Slates. Besides, when the war was over, both parties 
Avould begin to count the cost, and wish they had waited a little. 

As John Bull is older, by some tliousands of years than Brother Jonathan, we will take 
his evidence fu-st. 

[Frora the London Times of Decemlier 30, 1814.] 
Treaty of Ghent. " If any of the powers wlio have received our subsidies, or 
have been rescued from destruction by our courage and e.'cample, have hail the baseness 
to tm-n against us, it is morally certain, that the treaty of Ghent will conlh-m them in 
their resolution. They will reflect, that we have attempted to force our prmci- 
ples on America, and have failed. Nay, that we have retired from the combat with 
the stripes yet bleeding on our backs— with the recent defeats of Plattsburgh, and on Lake 
Champlain unavenged. To make peace at such a ]uoment, they will think, betrays a dead- 
ness to the feelings of honor, and shows a timidity of disposition inviting further insult. It 
Ave could have pointed to America overthroAvn, Ave should surely have stood on much higher 
ground at Vienna, and everywhere else, than we po.ssibly can do noAV. E\eu yet, however, 
if we could but close the Avar with .some great naval triumph, the reputatit^n of our maritime 
greatness might, bo partially restored ; but to say, that it has not hitherto suffered in the esti- 
mation of all Europe, and what is wor.se, of America herself, is but to belie common sense 
and universal experience. ' Tavo or three of our ships have struck to a force vastly supe- 
rior V No, not two or three, but many on the ocean, and AA'hole squadi'ons on the lakes; and 
the numbers are to be vieAved Avith relation to the comparative magnitude of the tAvo navies. 
Scarcely is there one American ship of war, Avhich has not to boast a ^'ictory oA'er the British 
flag; scarcely one British ship in thirty or forty, that \\p.s beaten an American. Our seamen, it 
is urged, have on all occasions, fought braA'ely. Whu denies it ?• Our complaint is, 
that Avith the bravest seamen, and the most poAverful navy in the world, we retire from 
the contest Avhen the balance of defeat is so heavily against us. Be it accident, or be it 
misconduct, we inquire not noAv into the cau.se; the certain, the inevitable consequences 
are Avhat we look to, and these may be summed up in fcAv Avords — the speedy groAvth of 
an American navy, and the recurrence of a new and much more formidable American 
Avar. From that fatal juomeut, Ai-hea the flag of the Guerriere Avas struck, there has been 
quite a rage lor building ships of Avar in tlie United States. Their navy has been nearly 
doubled, and their vessels are of extraordinary magnitude. The people, naturally A^ain, 
boastful and insolent, have been filled Aviih an absolute contempt of our maritime power, 
and a furious eagerness to beat down our maritime pretensions. Those passions, which 
have been inflamed by success, could only have been cooled by Avhat, in vulgar, but em- 
phatic language, has been termed ' a sound flogging;' but, unfortunately, our Chi-istian meek- 
ness has induced us rather to ki.ss the rod, than to retaliate its exeroi.ve. Such fals<' ;ind 



AMERICANS REVIBWINO A THREE YEARS' WAR. 26^ 

feeble humanity is not calculated for the guidance of nations. War is, indeed, a tremendous 
engine of justice; but when justice wields the sword, she must be iniiexible. Looking nei- 
ther to the right nor to the left, she must pursue her blow, until the evil is clean rooted 
out. This is not blind rage, or blind revenge ; but it is a discriminating, a cahn, and 
even a tender calculation of consequences. Better is it, that we should grapple with the 
young lion, when he is fii-st fleshed with the taste of om* flock, than wait until, in the 
maturity of his strength, he bears away at once both sheep and shepherd." 

Now for the Yankee version. Make way for the witness, Mr. William Coleman. 
Silence in court ! 

[From the New York Evening Post of February 13, 1815.] 
Treaty of Ghent. " For oui'selves, the people, who shall tell us, at the conclusion of 
this war, how we are recompensed for the death of thousands and the expense of millions 1 
Who shall tell the sacrifices, the losses, we have sustained, the sufierings Ave have under- 
gone and the deprivations we have endured and must endure for years to come ; and not 
we alone, but om- children and grandchildi-en after us. When the accounts of this war 
shall be all wound up ; when, in addition to the necessary expenses of it, the squanderings, 
the waste, the innumerable frauds that have been practised, the losses that have accrued from 
the abuses of public trust, are taken into consideration; (and let us consider that fitly thou- 
sand dollars lavished upon a single scoundrel to bribe him to forge a miserable calumny, 
forms an item and but an item in the account ;) when we reflect upon tlie multitude of pay- 
masters, and agents, conti-actors and commissaries, Avith all the hosts of jobbers for the army, 
from his excellency, the governor of a stale, who haggles and chaflfers for a lot of cartouch- 
boxes, down to the petty rascal who crimps recruits at eight dollars a-piece, men, who without 
virtue, labor or hazard, are growing rich, as their country is impoverished, when these and 
a host more, who have battened upon the distresses of their country, shall have their accounts 
adjusted and allowed by the proper oflicers, Avhat ihiiik you will be the melancholy result pre- 
sented to us 1 I will tell you what, and if I am wrong, let my words be remembered and the 

public confidence be withdrawn from me for ever It will be nothing less than a funded 

debt, of more than one hundred and fifty millions of dollars ; bearing an interest of six per 
cent. Still, A'ast as the amount is, it is AArithin the ability of the countiy, if we can stop here, to 
discharge it. Let u.s then meet the evil since it is inevitable, with firnmess and resolution, and 
cheerfully resolve, since it has noAV come to a conclusion, to proA'ide tor the debt, to the best of 
our ability. Let the nation i-ejoice, for though we have been compelled to make vast sacrifices 
without any adequate cause for it : though we have suffered calamity and distress Avantonly 
brought upon us by a Aveak and profligate acbninistration ; though we have been compelled to 
submit to losses Avhich can never be repaired, and to suffer golden advantages to pass by, 
which will never again i-eturn, yet let the nation rejoice, we haA^e escaped ruin.'' 

Colonel Duane, a veteran of opposite politics, and a Avarm friend of the Avar, dici not differ 
Irom his federal neighbor. 

[From the Philadelphia Aurora, by W. Duane, July 2-4, 1816.] 
•• Never Avas a peace concluded more timely or fortunately ; the inconsistency and want of 
system, the utter incapacity Avhich had been shown in the management of the war and the 
fmances, and the Avant of energy to repress revolt and put downi those Avho conspired against 
their country in league with the enemy, had made a deep impression on the country : but the ; 
peace came so suddenly, the people were so surprised and amazed at their good fortune, that 
all the imbecility and incapacity, all the waste and extravagance, the disasters and shame, 
Avhich belonged ts the public measures from the beginning to the close of the Avar, were, in the 
extacy of disappointed despondency, forgotten and forgiven — tiie squandering of treasure and 
stores in the west, misconduct, which would, under any other government, have sent generals 
to the common hut, were overlooked ; the most futile plans of campaigns, and the most ludi- 



STO candid reflections on war. BRADFORD WOO© 

crous and sometimes the most barbarous and wanton sacrifices of human life, for no other pur- 
poses on earth, than to aggrandize the vanity of a profligate favorite ; merit persecuted and 
slandered, and baseness and profligacy rewarded with the honors which, heretofore, it had 
been alleged were to be the meed of genius, virtue and patriotic services." 

The stripes at Plattsburgh, and the young lion of the west — that's the language of England's 
leading journal for 1814, and as to the victory hoped fer, to close the struggle decently, that 
came also — at New Orleans. The cost — eternity alone can tell the tears, the agony, the woe, 
the wretchedness, which were the result of that fierce and unnatural contest. When the ill- 
fated Lexington was burning off Long Island, and her 160 passengers and crew were crowded 
in the bow and stern, till compelled to leap into the ocean to be drowned, to escape being burnt 
alive ; when the boats were swamped, and all nearly perished by fire, water, frost and cold, in 
that terrible hour, how gladly would thousands of generous Americans and Britons have joined 
in risking their lives to save these unhappy men, women and children ! Yet their horrible 
deaths are as nothing in the account of woe and misery that must result from a deadly enmity 
between two peoples, of one origin, one religion, one kindred, and speaking the same language. 
The man who will interfere, in aught, effectually to prevent the slaughter of another 100,000 
christian men ; the grief of parents, brothers, sons, sisters and lovers ; the destruction of pro- 
perty, of friendship, and of commerce ; the retardment of republican progress ; and the immo- 
rality and hardness of heart which such a war would generate, would deserve well of man- 
kind. 

War will bring again upon us, heavy direct taxes — high prices — a wretched, fraudulent cur- 
-ency — loans, perhaps, as before, at 53 per cent, discount ; and it will delight the British to- 
nes ; it is just what they want. The people of England, Ireland, and Scotland, have united 
and pressed the landlords to the wall. Free trade with America, in Corn, in Pork, in Cotton, 
in Flour, in everything, is now the popular cry, the honest cry of a nation. O'Connell echoes 
it, the aristocracy are appalled, the iron duke gives way — when lo ! a new obstacle is found. 
The freemen of the west and the north are ready to battle — not for freedom, like their gallant 
sires ; not for aiding an oppressed colony, but for slavery in Texas, and for a band of heart- 
less slave-owners, who have joined with the pretended, stockjobbing democrats of the north to 
gamble the nation into a 200 million debt, for a strip of H^ Oregon ! 

I have met with the speech of Mr. Bradford Wood, member of Congress from this State, 
delivered in the H. of R., Jan. 31, 1846, in the Albany Evening Journal. Though late in life, 
I thankfully receive lessons of wisdom from this son of a revolutionary sire. If permitted to 
call myself a democrat, Mr. Wood's creed, as given below, would best indicate mine. 

" Grant, if you choose," said he, " that England should be worsted in every conflict, and that 
your plans for conquest and victory, like Captain Bobadil's, were perfectly feasible, it would 
still be dear-bought victory. You would have inflicted greater evils on your own country than 
on your enemy's. You wiU have demoralized your countr}'-, centralized its government, swept 
away its democracy, and erected on its ruins a military aristocracy, and thrown back for years 
the civilization of mankind. Nor would this be all. You will have arrested the progress of 
liberal opinions throughout the world, and especially in that very country where the principles 
of free-trade (the best of all peace societies) are spreading rapidly, widely and triumphant!)', 
benefiting alike that country and this, and which can be arrested only by a war between the 
two nations. Gentlemen were very much inclined to denounce England ; but the England of 
1T75 or 1812 was not the England of 1846. The only effectual way to attack England was by 
peace, not by war. It was the only way you could reach her proud imfeeling aristocracy, who 
had been built up by war, and whom a continuance of peace would ere long put down. With 
that aristocracy, none of us had any sjmipathy ; but he trusted all had with a do\vn-trodden 
people, struggling to unclasp their grasp, and w^ho had been demoralized, plundered, beggared 

and reduced to .starvation by glorious war Why was this deadly hate manifested 

against England "? Say what you would, with all her injustice to Ireland and to a portion of 
her own citizens, she still had more of civil and religious liberty than any other coimtry in 
Europe. There the liberty of speech and of the press were inviolate, and the blush came some- 
times tingling to his own cheek when it occurred to him that in this respect it was more invio- 
lable in England than in some portions of his own country. The fu-st aspirations of civil and 
religious liberty that ever dawned on this world arose in England — the same spirit that sent 
forth the pilgrims of New England, inspired Hampden, Miltou, and Vane, and brought the 



LAT. 49** — THE AMERICAN MERCHANT.— JEFFERSON. 271 

first Charles to the block. And now at this day, among the middle classes of England, and 
among those whose names are great without titles, were many who were manfully battling the 
cause of the people and of human progress, and who would deprecate a war with this country as 
a disg]-ace to civilization. The eirrogance of the British government was as little to his taste as 
the profligacy and insidious t}Tanny of France, or the despotism of Russia. All three were 
hostile to republican institutions ; and it became us to see to it that no ujijust act of ours should 
furnish them a pretext for an increased hostility." 

In the able and temperate speech of Mr. Winthrop on Oregon, as I find it in the Intelligencer, 
he referred to Mr. Preston King's remark that Mr. Po'.lv had offered the 49th parallel to Britain 
last summer, knowing it would be rejected ; and in Mr. Polk's message of December last, he 
affirms, " that the British plenipotentiary, without submitting any other proposition, suffered 
the negotiation on his part to drop." Let the reader turn to the correspondence of Buchanan, 
and it will there be found that the negotiation was abruptly closed by the withdrawal of all pro- 
posals of compromise, by the president's own order ! In Jefferson's letter to Monroe, Oct. 24, 
1823 [Works, vol. 4, p. 380], he tells him, that " Great Britain is the nation which can do us the 
most harm of any one or all on earth ; and with her on our side we need not fear the whole 
world. With her then we should most sedulously cherish a cordial friendsliip." 

An honorable and dignified body of merchants are a blessing to any country. Their calling 
IS among the most usetul, respectable, and necessarj' of any in these United States; and they 
ought to stand with a perfect equality before the law. I'hat they do not so stand is a fact 
which none will deny. That many of our laws are made, or administered, so as to tantalize 
and pillage them, is daily made manifest. That gross favoritism towards some, and bitter 
enmity towards others, was the practice in Van Buren's time, the journals of Congress too 
clearly testify ; and when we see B. F. Butler again district attorney, malgr^ his extortions 
from 1838 to 1841, we do not anticipate too kind treatment now.* Add to all tliis, that they 
are kept month after month in absolute uncertainty as to the continuance of peace, their adven- 
turous spirit checked, their calculations made doubly doubtful, and the important subjects of a 
tariff, and the currencv, left unseuled— and then let the Congressmen and their constituents ask 
themselves, if the bold, fearless, intelligent, upright, and industrious American merchant re- 
eeives from his government fair play, or anything like it '? 

The London Times thinks " that every purpose both of honor and interest would be answered, 
if the British Minister, on whom now devolves the duty of making fresh proposals to the Gov- 
ernment of the United States, were to renew on his part the offer made to England by Mr. Gal- 
latin in the presidency and under the direction of Mr. Adams. That proposal was to take the 
49th degree of North latitude as far as the sea, as the boimdary line, reserving to Great Britain 



* Can Merchants not be trusted as Jurors ■?— Mr. Hoyt, collector of customs, N. Y., informed Matthew 
Birchard, Solicitor of the Treasury, Washington, by letter dated Feb. 22, 1840 — that " the arrogance of the com- 
" mercial classes, exhibited within the lust few yea'rs, in their etforts to satisfy the people that this class alone 
" were entitled to control the government, as well as the destinies of all other classes, has had its influence 
"even ' in the judgment seat;' and, from a sympathetic feeling, has controlled judges in advices and admoni- 
" tions to jurors ; which has been adverse to the interest of the United Slates. He have been heretofore itnfor- 
" tvnate in the selection of jurors in the courts of the United States. They are not drawn, as is the practice in 
" other courts, but are selected bij the marshal from uhat sources he pleases ; and hitherto large numbers of 
'jurors have been taken from the mercantile classes, against which course I have remonstrated," &c. Mr. 
Hoyt went on to state that there should be "instructions ;" and, five days afterwards, M. Birchard, Solicitor of 
the Treasury at Washington, thus instructed the Marshal, A. J. Bleecker : 

" Feb. 27, 1840. — There are few persons who have not eften seen honest men err in judgment in consequence 
"of influences from which they, at the time, believed themselves entirely free. Tt impute.'s nothing against the 
" honor of New York merchants to suppose that, in this respect, they are subject to the like imperfections 
" which belong to other men. I have therefore to request you to bear these general observations in mind, when 
" selectino- jurors for the trial of recfnur. cases, and endeavor to SELECT impartial, capable MEN. wlio are 

"TOTALLY DISCONNECTED WITH TRADE and all its influences the whole nation 

"knows thai CONFIDENCE MAY WELL BE PLACED IN THE INTEtJRITY AND JUDGMENT OF HON- 
" EST FARMERS AND MECHANICS, AND TH.\T IT IS not less PRdPER FOR THE U. S. TO SEEK A 
" FAIR TRIAL than for a private citizen."— M. BIRCHAKD, Solicitor, £rc. 

In December, 1839, we find Henry D. Gilpin taking" Hoyt and Butler to task for compromising heavy law- 
suits instituted for alleged fraudulent entries, without authority from the Treasury Department — half the 
amount thus recovered went to Hoyt, Coe and Craig— half to the United States — with enough to Butler. In 
January, 1840 (next month), the convenient Matthew Birchard had taken the place of the more severe and 
rigid Gilpin. The Hoyt, Van Buren and Buller private correspondence, may help some of my readers in guess- 
ing why and how this sudden change came to pass. On the 23d of January, the pliant Birchard wrote to Hoyt 
that the reasons given "are such as would have induced this office to advise the course taken retpecting them, had 
it been consulted." „ ^ , , 

In December, 1838, [Rep. 669, p. 331], Hoyt writes to Bancroft, Collector at Boston (now Secretary of the 
Navy), as follows : 

" You may however, be able to succeed fin condemning the goodsj better in vour district than we can here ; 
"for OUR COURT IS VERY MUCH OF A MERCANTILE COURT— and the juries, AS A MATTER OF 
" COURSE, always go against the government, and will continue to do so as long as it is the fashion of the day 
" to consider the government as opposed to the merchants. In other words, when the merchants are the joiors 
" and witnesses, God help the government ! — Jkbee Hoyt." 



272 walker's PUPF. what would IRELAND DO ? 

Vancouver's Island, the harbor of St. Juan de Fuca, and the free navigation of the Columbia." 
I think I lat i America made that offer to England 20 years since — if Polk said 49° a few 
months since — if 19"^ was the word in Monroe's time — in Adams's time — in T3fler's and Cal- 
houn's daj^s — and if, as is " clear and unquestionable," the 54° 40' was a mere puff, written by 
"Walker, and put forth in the conclave of office-seekers and office-holders at Baltimore, by But- 
ler, Sandy Hill fashion, to secure the election from the whigs — if President Polk knew of all 
these 49° offers, and yet professed to believe in the 54° 40' till his election was carried by a trick 
— if Van Buren, Marcy and all the rest had approved of the 49's and yet sung the new song 
of 51° 40' to secure the man they deemed available ; and the speech of Haywood, Polk's col- 
lege chum, indicates all this ; the sooner the thing is settled, and the less we say about it, the 
better. I do not pretend to judge of the merits of the several parallels, but surely, a few acres 
of desert are not worth quarrelling about. Reform progresses with giant strides in England, 
and God forbid that the noble sons of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, should stop its 
onward course, to please the British tories, and to gain for us here a life-lease of Polk, Walker, 
Marcy, Texas, Houston, and more slavery ! My private opinion is, that Oregon belongs to 
the people there, natives and immigrants ; and that if England and America would bestow a 
tentFi part of the money a war would cost, in settling it on the National Reform principle, of 
160 acres to each family ; settlers to be entitled to 160 acres each, and no man to hold more ; 
the result would be more pleasing than that of a war, conquer who may : a war, too, for a nar- 
row strip of desert we have thrice freely offered to give away ! 

John duincy Adams thinks that a war to free the slave, to give liberty to the captive, to 
complete the glorious work of '76, and make the great declaration a truth, would be popular in 
England. So it would. Who there would sympathise with Polk, Marcy, Walker, Cave 
Johnson, and the slave monopolists 1 Who ought to sympathise with them here ? No one. 
" The occupation of Texas will convert the old slaveholding part of the United States into a 
disgusting nursery for young slaves, because a black crop will produce more money to the pro- 
prietors than any other crop they can cultivate." O'Connell, in his dispute with Stevenson, 
published as his opinion, that the slaveholders abolished the foreign slave-trade, " that by such 
abolition they enhanced the price of the slaves then in America by stopping the competition. 
Why otherwise was not the home trade stopt as well as the foreign V 

The N. Y. Evening Post of Feb. 14, 1815, says that the news of a peace, thougli not rati- 
fied, lowered prices. Sugar fell at once from ^26 to 3t' 12,50 ; Tea, from $2,25 to $1 ; Specie, 
from S22 premium to ^2 ; Tin was $80 per box on Saturday, and only $25 on Monday ; U. S. 
sLx per cent, stock advanced from 76 to 86, and Treasury iiotes to within 2 of par. " In no 
place has the war been more felt or proved more disastrous." Yet I do not think that priva- 
tion would enter into the American mind in the event of a new struggle. Of the bravery of 
this people no one can entertain a doubt. 

I know it will be said that it is to free Ireland that we would fight, in part. Will Irishmen, 
■who saw Polk struggle to get a judge put upon the bench of the Supreme Court, hy means of 
a senatorial approval of his nomination, wiiose chief merit consisted in his unceasing, I'ooted 
hatred to adopted citizens, believe this'^ Would Ireland join England in such a case"? I 
liave not a doubt of it. Our native majorities, our slavery, our Philadelphia rious and church 
burnings, to put down the Catholics, arc not very politic, if Ireland is to be won. England, if 
she go to war, will come to a full understanding with Ireland, as she has already with France. 
If there is nothing to apprehend from the French republicans, and I hear that there is not, it 
would be a fair fight, between two very brave countries; but it ought not to be, and I hope 
will not be. Our case, as far as Texas is involved, is about as unjust a one as England's 
effort to subdue the Affghans, who had never owed her any allegiance. 

You were told, free Americans, that to add Texas to the Union was to extend the area of 
freedom. Here i-s an extract from its constitution : 

" All persons of color, who were slaves for life previous to their emigration to Texas, and 
who arc now held in bondas:e, shall remain in the like slate of servitude, provided the said slave 
shall be thi; bona fide property of the person so holding said slave as aforesaid. Congress 
shall pass im laws to prohibit emigrants from the Uiiited States of America from bringing their slaves 
into tlie republic with them, and holding them by the same tenure by winch slaves were held in 
the United States ; nor shall congress ha.vc live power to emancipate slaves ; nor shall any slaveholder 
be allovxd to emancipate his or her slaves, witho^it the consent of cowj^ress, unless he or she shall 
send his or her slave or slaves without the limits of ihe republic. 'So free person of African 
descent, either in whole or in part, shall be permitted to reside permanently inlhc rcpiMic, with- 
(Hit the consent of congress." 

This was what Polk was for annexing immediately — this was what the shrewd and far- 
steing Calhuun was ready to involve the whole Union in war for, had it been necessary. I 
now l)i'gin to think, that with him and McDiiflie the principle is, nullification or negro slavery 
uppermost. Even Van Buren, who knew his ca.se was hopeless in the north without aboli. 
lion votes, had to admit, that " Nothing is either more true or more extensively known, than 
than Texas was wrested from Mexico, and her Independence established through the instru- 



0'c0N:<RLL ON rOLK, War, slavery and TEXAS. 273 

mentalitj' Oi^ citizens of the United States. Equally true is it that this was done not only 
against the ".vishes, but in direct contradiction of the best efforts of our government to prevent 
our citizens from engaging in the enterprise." Houston, Jackson. Swartvvout and Polk could 
have contradicted the Intter assertion, but it Avas useless. The language of Mr. Clay was, " I 
arn decidedly opposed to the immediate annexation oiTtx&s to the United Stiites. I think it 
would be dishonorable, might involve them in war, would be dangerous to the integrity and 
harmony of the Union, rnd, if all these objections were removed, could not be effected accord- 
ing to any information I possess, upon just and admissible conditions." And Jackson, on the 
brink of eternity, e;cclaimed, " Let Polk, Dallas, and Texas, be the watchword and counter- 
sign — and Clay and his friend Frelinghuysen, the friend oho nf abdition, for which he spurns 
at Texas, Milfbe overwhelmed by the unanimous Voice of the south." Yet Miien Pakenham 
Vt'as invading Louisiana, Jackson, on December 18, 1814, addressed his black soldiers in an- 
other strain. He said: "Soldiers ! When on the banks of the Mobile, I called you to take 
up arms, inviting you to partake the perils and glor)^ of your white fellow citizens, I expected 
much from you ; for I was not ignorant that you possessed qualities most formidable to an in- 
vading enemy. I knew with what fortitude you coidd endure hunger and thirst, and all the 
fatigues of a campaign. I Imew well how you loved your native countr}^, and that you had, 
as well as ourselves, to defend what man holcls most dear — his parents, relations, wife, children 
and property. You have done more than I expected. In addition to the previous qualities I 
before knew you to possess, I found, moreover, among you a noble enthusiasm, which leads to 
the performance of great things." 
Shall such men as these be denied the right of voting, by the Convention, next June?- 
The two most influential men in Ireland are Daniel O'Conuell and Theobald Mathew; 
they have united in an invitation to the Irish here to oppose slavery. In the official publica- 
tion of O'Connell's speech in Conciliation Hall, March 20th, 1845, he thus warned our pre- 
tended democrats where Ireland would be fomid whenever an attempt might be made to real- 
ize Calhoun's idea of adding all Mexico to the republic. 

From the Dublin Freeman's Journal. 
Mu. O'CoNNELL. — " I regard with horror the annexation of another slave state to the Ame- 
rican Union. Sir, no good is to be bought by the slightest admixture of evil, and I condemn, 
and I deplore, and I denounce the augmentation of human misery that must result by the 
annexation of another slave state. They talk about the boldness of Mr. Polk's message— in 
one point it betraj's arrant cowardice— I will not condescend to mince the word. In talk- 
ing of slavery in the States, Mr. Polk has not the courage to call it by its proper name. 
He does not' speak of the Americans upholding slavery and possessing slaves, but he 
glosses over the infamous traffic by stvling it by the delicate expression of a 'domestic 
institution.' Domestic in,stitution ! "Mr. Polk, it "is Slavery! Mr. Polk, it is huckstering 
in human flesh (loud choers). It is a loathsome, an execrable system that makes man the pro- 
perty of his fellow ; it is buying and selling man created after the image of God, redeemed 
by the blood of his Son, and bearing upon his brow the impress of the Eternal seal, it is 
buying and selling him, I say, as though he were the beast of the field that giazes, and 
not a deathless being marked out for an im.morfal redemption, the heir of a heavenly in- 
heritance, and designed for a destiny so glorious that the mind of man is dazzled in con- 
templating it. And^I am to be told that slaverv is 'a domestic institution' (hear, hear)! 
Out upon those who would make it so ! I love my country, but I Avould accept ot no ad- 
vantage to my country through the medium of such a crnne. I want no American aid it it 
comes across'the Atlantic stained with negro blood, and from my soul I despise any govern- 
ment, which, while it boasts of liberty, is guilty of slavery, the greatest crime that can be 
committed by humanity against humanitv. The right to freedom depends not on the hue 
of the skin ; if it did, who shall decide" upon what hue is the favored one (hear, hear) 
—seeing that all eves do not delight in the same colour 1 No matter under what specious 
term it may disguise itself, slavery is .still hideous. It has a natural, an inevitable tendency 
to brutalize every noble faculty of man. Let not America imagine that this boastuig of 
liberty makes her name respected. No, for as the a.ssertion of virtue is a proof ot h}'po- 
crisy, if the virtue be not practised, so the attempt to proclaim liberty becomes blasphemous 
when we .see three millions of human beings stimulated and torn by the lash— the husband 
separated from the wife, and the children from the parents, and sent into distant and remote 
plantations never more to behold the face of a father or the smiles of a mother [heai-, hear, 
and loud cheering.] And yet those who are ready to uphold that system are the people that 
dare talk to me of liberty. * * * * We tell them from this .spot that they can have us— 
that the throne of Victoria can be made perfectly secure— the honor of the Brili.sh Empire 
maintained, and the American Eagle, in its highest pride, brought down. Let th^m but 
conciliate us and do us justice, and thev will have us enlisted under the banner of Victoria— 
let them but ?ive us the Parliament inCollej^e-green, and Oregon shall be theirs and Texas 
shall be harmless (cheers). While England was not threatened by America, as long as she 
was in a state to compel submission, so long we heard not a word of conciliating Ireland , 



I8f4 NEGRO VOTING AND PATRIOTISM. SUMNER AND UPSHUR. 

V ♦ .1,- «,n«i,.nt thP Oreffon territory became a bone of contention, that war was threatened, 
bat the moment the '-''??°^^^^7;"^^^^ g^^ord for the tangled web of affairs, then is Ire- 

and that there appeared no ^"l^^'O'l^J"^'^ Jf '^/^^l eers? 1 repeal when they want us they 
land recollected, 'hen concesMons are spoken of (c^^^^^ o offer\he«« ^«'"^^'^'^> ^^ain to 

shall have us (^^Zlll^lorhnilJ^^^^^^^^ '« England that ^he^annot 

pronounce my deles auon of hj^imans^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^.^ ^^^ . ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ 

S^and^rirS^b"^^^^^ price that all rational men wUl assent to, liberty 

and justice, (great cheering.)" 

V. A ,Kof ;n pa=;P nf war Ireland will be less in the way of Britain than the south- 
I apprehend that in case^t war nemna ^^.^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ever>nhing 

cm slaves in that of ihei oune.s vvno a e a Y ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^1^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^,ight. 

that Ban be done is dune o ^^^ Jf^^^^'^ f j^"^^ Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, 
f''^-. ^^n^f Sisan Is as uneducated as Hottentots 1 If such as they can vote for slavery 
^" ^T.^H their bla?S also mTr to see the suffrage extended to any class who 

over us and \heir J^'acl^ also, mien a i convention who are believed to be the 

are not educated, I shall ^^^te tor t nose ueie ai northern freedom. There is 

most willing to ra.se the oppressed African '» J^f '" ' "^ « J„^^ ^^^, ^f ^_ glack men are as 
a risk 1 admit, but It. son the hone.t^^ ^^^ of encouragement as 

kind-hearted, as sk.lfu as ingenious a^^^^^ Emerson were asked to lecture 

^SeT-^:^£^%SZ:i:y^S:i because negroes were excluded from equal 
rights. Sumner's refusal contained the following remarks: ^ ,« ^, • •, .u . 

-, , • ,11 ,„ tv,at ih^ nrpindire of color which is akin to the stern and selfish spirit that 

Kw'';;'\'htame'btrhet^^^tlTo7 eTpers^ like my.self, to the learned lectures 

ofSeeeraL and7S)ssi; nor do 1 re.ne.nber observing in the lhn;ng of sens.t.ve young 
of Uegerantto^ .hpVwere surrounded any feeling toward them except ot companionship and 

£i5r>e'TaS!;?° Tr,hSe':'x\m?a"lT£ ^i-nld .he propel influence of *e 

Christian spirit." . v . »,» .k»j,. 

I intend to support native Americans in their right to self-government, whatever be their 

1 ,i,Ln<Th ^nme nf them were a little too bitter against Europeans who live here The 

'?nlc ot clredp^^^^^^^ Perusal of the repots from the Bnt.sh 

WesUndies which show the good results that have arisen from educating, l.berat.ng, and 

We.s li^^'^^' .^^ "'':". ;"'; r^.^jf^pd me in this resolution. A co ored man, who had been in the 

trusting the black 1 ave f ^^^J "^^^^ .murder in this state. Had he been cared 

?rin'v3 rateTtreS not degraded, such a crime would 

hTv^be^en teWiWe^o 1 in , even to think of. The English speak in h.gti terms of sx.me of 

,^ wn^L- trnrln^ Washin-ton confided in armed negroes; so d.d Jackson, and he gave 

Sem Jerv h^h rraiseTocrHC.non'i says that Gene.-al Root and Colonel Young, ''dur.ng 

them verj "'i-'^ P''^'. ,'. ,Ko ....« m^p "voted for a law for ra s ng a regiment ot blacks. 

rL-?f«d5£w;o>,ave„5P;e^^^^ 

and apprupnate flags c^-ossed ih k ry J' ^f ha^je • s'.j, t ^^^ ^^^^_^^^^^ ^^ ^^^. ^^^ .^^ 

8uch as to afford him daily opportunities to deceive and injure us, and >ct he has never been 



CHECKS OM VOTING. INDIAN FEELINGS. JEFFERSON ON SLAVERY. 275 

detected in any serious fault, nor even in an intentional breach of the decorums of his station. 
His 'nitiUisduc is of a high order, his integriiy ahove all suspicion, and his sense of right and 
propriety correct and even refined. It is due to his long and faithful services, and to the sin- 
cere and steady friendship wliich I bear him. In the uninterrupted and conlidential intercourse 
of twenty-four years, I hav(i never given, nor had occasion to give iiini an unpleasant word. 
I know no man who has fewer faults or more excellencies than he." 

Napoleon said of Toussaint L'Ouverture of St. Domingo: "The black leader possessed 
energy, courage, and great skill." Thirty-two editors of public journals in the West Indies, 
are )nulattoes, and not a few of the legislators there are black. 

The Convention of 1S'3I declared that Senators of N. Y. must be freeholders, but that As- 
semblymen need not be. If two separate Houses are requisite, especially lor appointments 
and executive business, why not make a distinction, and give us an aristocracy of intellect 1 
To do this, it' is only necessary lo provide that none shall vote for Governor and Senate who 
cannot read and write, leaving the Asscmbfy, &:c. as at present. This would be a republican 
check o^ the true sort. Why should one class among us try to estrange the Indian, another 
the negro another the catholic, and another the European emigrants 1 Is not onir strength in 
union"? Better the memory of ancient kindness than of ancient I'raud and deceit. iVlr. An- 
derson of Tennessee, in Senate, Jan. 8, 1841, told of the effects of Butler, Van Buren, Cass, 
and Jackson's Indian diplomacy, with the Creeks and Cherokees, whose memorials Congress 
contemned. He said: 

" Peace ! Peace ! Security with the Indian ! It is but a dream ! He but reposes for a 
season in the enjoyment of your favors until that day shall arrive when he flushes with the 
hope of blood and revenge. The recollection of the injuries you have inflicted ; the lands 
you have taken, the wounded pride you have humbled, the very tribute under which }'ou have 
placed him, keeps the fire of hatred unquenched, and fiercely burning in his bosom ! He will 
receive your gifts, extend his hand for your annuities, but instead of turning his face upon the 
bleak passes of the Rocky Mountains, and descending upon the coast of California, he will 

Eatiently await the period when events, guided by the potent hand of his old ally, shall call 
im to the war-path and the battle field. He will then remember, not your bounties, but your 
triumphs, and he wiU prepare, in a more formidable shape than at any former period, for uniting 
his kind:-ed tribes in one solid league against your frontier brethren." 

Are we to make the negroes our deadly enemies also 1 Calhoun tells us (Jan. 1837), that 
" A mysterious Providence has brought two races of men together into this country from dif- 
ferent parts of the earth ; the European to be the master, and the African the slave. These 
relations cannot be overthrown ; and every society founded on the principle of separating 
them is acting on a basis of error." Polk lugged in Providence into his pro-slavery inau- 
gural, Van Buren borrowed it for his epistles to Jesse, and even Calhoun conclescends to insult 
heaven by pretending that it is a party to a daring violation of Christ's commandment to love 
your neighbor as yourself! 

" I never mean, unless some particular circumstances shall compel me to it, to possess 
another slave by purchase, it being |:^ among my fir.st wishes, .:r5 |;;;|=tosee some plan adopted 
by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law." Thus wrote the great Wa.sh- 
ington, the father of his country, to Sir John Sinclair ; and although the darling wish of his 
soul, to remove the blot olslavery from his beloved country, was not fulfilled, he leit his example, 
as a precept to posterity. The slaves of George Washington were made tree ; and the man- 
tle of Elijah may have fallen on the chosen Elisha, whose power and energy in a glorious 
cause, will yet give a universal reality to the declaration of independence, so that our great 
abolition leader's prayers may have a speedy, peaceful, and glorious accomplishment. The 
memorable contemporary of Washington, Thomas Jefierson, I'elt the same detestation of this 
horrible .system ; and, having beheld its effects, from his youth upward, stated in a letter to 
M. Wareville, Paris, February, 1788, that 

"The whole commerce between Master and Slave is a perpetual exercise of the most bois- 
terous passions ; the most unremitting despotism on the one part and degrading .submission 
on the other. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on 
the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his worst passions, and thus 
nursed, educated and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious 
peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals unde- 
praved by such circumstances. What an incomprehensible machine is man ! Who can 
endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of his own liberty, 
and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him through his 
trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery 
than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose." 

And when writing, in 1821, the memoir prefixed to his [JeflTerson's] correspondence, he 
declared, that "nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people 
[the slaves of the U. S^] are to be free ; nor is it more certain that the two races, equally free^ 
cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion, have drawn indelible lines of 



276 SLAVE OWNERS DESCRIBING SLAVERY. THE CANADA REVOLT, 

distinction between them." He [an abolitionist of 50 years standing] adds his opinion, that if 
gi-adual emancipation and deportation are not resorted to, the terrible example of the deletion 
of the Moors in Spain will be far exceeded here. He calls the slaves his •• suffering 
brethren," and invokes heaven lor their deliverance. How justly and liberally the Methodist 
clergy are acting in this matter, and what a powerful impress did John Wesley make of his 
free spirit upon his successors ! John Randolph of Roanoke, said in his will, " I give and 
bequeath to all my slaves their freedom, H^ heartily regretting that I have ever been the owner 
of one. "43 He bequeathed $8000, in trast, for the removal of his .slaves to some other state, 
to settle them there comfijrtably. Thomas Jefferson Randolph, in the legislature of Virginia, 
in 1832, declared that Virginia had been converted into §2r'"one grand menagerie, where 
men are reared for the market like oxen for the shambles."'4J The same gentleman thus 
compared the African with the Virginia, or domestic, slave trade: "^;;j=The [African] 
f;^ trader receives the slave, a stranger in aspect, language, and manner, from the merchant 
j;^ who brought him from the interior. But here, sir, [in frke Virginia,] individuals whom 
^^ the master has known from infancy — whom he has seen sporting in the innocent gam- 
f:^ bols of childliood — who have been accustomed to look to him for protection, he tears from 
^^ the mother's arms, and sells into a strange country, among a strange people, subject to 
^:^ cruel taskmasters. In my opinion it is much worse." In the same ses.sion, Mr. Moore 
declared that slavery was destroying morality and virtue in the commonwealth — that the de- 
sire of freedom being the inevitable consequence of intelligence, the owners of slaves, from 
policy, kept them in profound ignorance — that such ignorance prevented the slave from 
judging between right and wrong, and brought into action all the vicious propensities of op- 
pressed human nature — that the .slave looked on the whites as leagued in inflicting the many 
wrongs endured by his race, and thus became revengeful — that " the indiscriminate inter- 
course of the sexes," among the slaves was very demoralizing — that at no distant day slaveiy 
Avould " end in a servile war which would continue till the land was red with human blood, 
and either the whites or the black's wholly exterminated" — and that this war would be com- 
menced the moment the blacks should become so numerous as to give rise to a hope that 
they could burst the bands that bound them to the soil. The Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky 
thus officially describes slavery, as it is daily pas.sing under their eyes : " This system li- 
censes and jiroduces great cruelty. Mangling, imprisonment, starvation, every species of 
torture may be inflicted upon the slave and he has no redress. There are now in our whole 
land two millions of human beings, exposed, deleitceless, to every insult and every injury 
.short of maiming or death, which their fellow men may choose to inflict. They suffer all that 
can be inflictedbv wanton caprice, by grasping avarice, by brutal lust, by malignant spite, 
and by insane anger. Their happiness is the sport of every whim, and the prey of every 
passion that may, occasionally, or habitually, infest tlie master's bosom. If we could calcu- 
late the amount of woe endured by ill-treated slaves, it would overwiielm every compassion- 
ate heart — it would move even the obdurate to sympathy." By the Texas constitution, all 
free blacks are to be banished for the crime of not being bondsmen. On the l'2th of February, 
1837, the H. of R. of our free Congress, voted " that slaves do not possess the right of petition 
secured to the people by the U. S. constitution ;" thus denying millions of poor, oppressed 
wretches a right which from infancy to old age is given by "the God of Heaven to the poorest 
of his creatures, the right of the sufferer, in his pain, to entreat for succor and aid from the 
hand of wisdom, justice, and mercy. Millions of poor slaves are represented by pretended 
southern friends on the floor of Congress — this slave representation gives presidents to the 
republic, controls its patronage, protects .'<outhern oppression by its power over the army and 
navy, bargains with northern cupidity to degrade free institutions, and make them a mock- 
ery and a reproach throughout Europe. It contracted with, hired, and duly paid as a gilded 
puppet, that '-northern man with southern principles," Martin Van Buren. 

I earnestly desired to see Canada free from British power, in 1838. Had my wishes been 
fulfilled she would now have been ruled by the Polks and the Marcys, the Houstons and the 
Cambrelengs, the South Carolina and Virginia slave breeders and slave owners, the union 
of Tammany Hall slock and ofhce brokers, with Mississippi blacklegs and Tennessee patriols; 
while the poor slaves whom they would tear from the arms of liberty at the farthest corners of 
the earth, would have had their "chains again riveted. Few were more ardent than my-self in 
Uieir wishes that " Van Buren and freedom " might be successlul in 183U. I have since found 
out that there may be more faithful mirrors (jf his democracy found than Holland's Life, and 
should be sorry to see the freeman's arm lilted against Canada while the power of the repub- 
lic in the south is wielded by hypocrisy, and the'avarice of dealers in human flesh ministered 
to, in order that both whites and blacks may jemain in degraded ignorance. 

" Ah ! little thou;;lit I whi.-n in yduth's warm hour, (■lowin<; inilifrnant at tyrannic power, 
I turned in IHncy to that happy land, whose milder laws victorious patriols planned, 
Thai I should ever .'ce a re(;ion there, where dark oppression urces to despair ; 
And freedom's clamor, and ihe negro's cries, in wildest dissonance conuuingling rise." 

Three weeks after C'ongress had resolved that the injured African was unworthy and unfit 
to be listened to, if he complained of oppression— and near to the time at which Judge Law- 



VAN BUREN's defence OF SLAVERY AND MOB VIOLENCE. 27/^ 

less advised a Missouri grand jury not even to notice the atrocious facts, that Mcintosh, a black 
man, had been dragged from prison, chained to a tree, and consumed near St. Louis by a slow fire, 
not by a few fiends, but in presence of an assembled neighborhooti — did Martin Van Buren come 
forth, on the 3d of March, 1837, to take a solemn oath to protect and defend, as tlie cliief of the 
republic, the star-spangled banner, the flag of the free. O, what a mockery of heaven that 
was ! Polk's more recent ministrations, as the high priest of Texan tortures, were decent and 
becoming when compared to Van Buren's. 

" It would seem, (says William Leggett) that we have elevated Mr. Van Buren to theoflice 
of President for the mere purpose that he inay be slave-master-in-chief and a negro-overseer. 
He pledged himself to exercise his veto power against anything which Congi'ess might do 
toward the abolition of slavery for the next four years, without even pretending that it was be- 
yond the constitutional competency of that body to act on the subject. This threatened use 
of the veto, by a man standing on "the very threshold of the executive office, is the most inde- 
cent abuse of power, of which any American President was ever guilty." 

" For Mr. Van Buren, standing on the threshold of his administration to announce to the 
world that he will veto anv bill whicli Congress may pass upon a particular subject, is as gi-oss 
a breach of public decorum, and as violent'"a stretch of his proper duties, as it would be for the 
Supreme Court to pass a solemn resolution, declaring that if Congress enacted such and such 
a law, they would pronounce it unconstitutional, and set it aside the moment it should come be- 
fore them for adjudication."' 

" Virginia and Marvland inav, in the meanwhile, [i.e. during V. B.'s 4 years,] abolish slavery, 
leaving'the District ot' Columbia, like a plague spot, in their midst; but this will not release 
Mr. Van Buren from his pledge. He can never consent to strike otf the fetters of the .slave in 
the ten miles square, placed bv the Constitution under the cxclu.^ive control of the federal gov- 
ernment, until ever\' state where slavery exists has accorded its approbation of the measure." 
'• Mr. Van Buren's' indecent ha.ste to avow his predeterminations on the subject of slaverj'. 
(continues Leggett.) has not even the merit of boldness. It is made in a cringing spirit of 
propitiation to "the south." Again, page 291, Vol. I of Plaindealer : '^We wish we could be 
convinced that it [the inaugural address] is not a cautious, timid, time-serving document, 
composed at the instance of a cringing spirit, willing to propitiate the slaveholders at the 
expense of justice and humanitv." 

The recent disgraceful riots in Lexington, Kentuck}-, the object of which was to put down 
freedom of discussion, and prevent the white population from knowing what could be said 
against slavery, had very nearly ended in the murder of Cassius M. Clay, a relative of Henry 
Clay, who had established the " True American" there. I was threatened, but not to the like 
extent, when I exposed Van Buren's confederates in the Butler pamphlet. One ot Morris's 
post-office letter carriers went roimd rowing vengeance, and other officials talked loolishly. 
When the pamphlet reached Charleston, the bookseller to whom it was sent feared to offer it 
for sale, for |:::|=there was a foot note somewhere in it against slavery. But the American peo- 
ple love order : thev showed that in the case of Morgan, and unless where instigated by such 
false guides as Van Buren, all classes glorv in sustaining the laws of their country. 

Washington and Jeflerson have sincere disciples yet. Some of the.se, in 1836 and 1837, 
lectured on behalf of the poor negroes, others published newspapers to instruct the millions 
about slaverv. One editor was shot dead— several presses were trampled to the ground, and 
burnings and violent riots had intimidated some verv sincere friends of equal rights. To the 
astonishment of Leggett, Van Buren, in his inaugural, defended the guilty as a hired partisan 
would have done. In the Plaindealer of 1837, pages 2-26 to 290, Leggett thus reproves him. 

" ' I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the 
United States.' ' This was the momentous obligation Mr. Van Buren had taken upon him- 
self, when we find him almost in the same breath, uttering words of semi-approval of the 
most audacious and brutal conduct, having for its avowed object, to destroy the fieedom of 

the pre.ss, and silence free discussion The violent outrages of ferocious ruffians he chose 

to designate as mere outbreaks of ' popular indignation,' a phrase which implies approval, 
•since indic-natiov conveys the sense of righteous anger. Not satisfied with describing the 
brutality and fierceness of the mobs by so commendatory a term, he alluded to the conduct of their 
victims in language calculated to convey the impression that they ^'justly provoked, and fully 
deserved their fate, deserved all sorts of indignities and injuries for exercising, temperately and 

decorously the commonest privilege of freedom, the mere privdege of speech Alluding to the 

pro-slavery mobs and riots in various parts of the country, he [Van Buren] says, ' a reckless dis- 
regard of the consequences of their conduct has exposed individuals to popular indignation. 
This is an admirable version of the matter. The issuing of a temperate and decorous news- 
naper, in which a question of great public moment was gravely discussed, showed beyond aU 
question, a most ' reckless disregard for consequences,' deserving the harshest rebukes ; and 
the conduct of the mob that broke up the press, demolished the house which contained it nd 
shockingly maltreated the person of the editor, was merely £|=a natural and justifiable 



278 CLINTON, KING, MARCY, VAN BUREN, JAY AND IRVING, IN 1820. 

ejcpression of popular indignation.'" These are the opinions of Leggett, a true Tammany 
democrat, on the conduct and language of Van Buren, a pretended one. Joshua Leavitt of 
Boston took the same view. He said : 

" The new President has delivered his inaugural address, and taken on him the oath and 
responsibilities of office. In the face of heaven and earth, the President stands forth, avow- 
edly, the enemy of freedom, the opponent of equal rights, the defender of slavery, the slan- 
derer of freedom's friends, and the instigator and patron of mobs. About to assume the re- 
sponsibilities of the highest office in the gift of a professedly free people, he steps forth, and 
declares the effort to give freedom to the enslaved, "injuiious to every interest, that of human- 
ity included." 

Van Buren did not thus act from principle. It was his bargain with the tjTants of the 
south. He was their delegate, their agent, their hired attorney— just as Fitzgibbon (Clare), 
Scott (Clonmell), Plunkett, and Toler (Norbury), were the creatures of bad English administra- 
tions for the oppression of Ireland. In 181 0, when he thought that the friends of freedoio would 
triumph, he was the deadly foe of slavery's extension. Why 1 It was popular to be so, and 
popularity was the stepping-stone to power. On the 20th of January, 1820, the Senate of 
this .state unanimously agreed with the Assembly in a resolution declaring, that, " Wkereas 
" the inhibiting tJve fwrtlier exiemion of slavery in these United States, is a subject of deep concern 
"to the people of this State ; and whereas, toe consider slavery as an evil vuich to be deplored, and 
^Hhat every constitutLonal barrier should be interposed to prevent its further extension; and that 
" the Cunstitutuni of the United States clearly gives Congress the -right to require from new states 
'^ not comprised within the originate botmdarics of these United States the prohibition of slavery, 
" as a condition of Uteir admission into the Union — Therefore, Resolved, That mir Senators be 
" instructed, and our Representatives in Congress be requested, to oppose the admission, as a stale, 
"into the Union, of any territory not comprised as aforesaid, withoiot making the prohibition of 
"slavery therein an indispensable condition of admission." General Root was, in those days, 
an Ajax in freedom's army — De Witt Clinton was ultra in favor of spreading freedom and 
not tyranny over America — and among the votes recorded for the above principles, and in 
opposition to slavery in Missouri, were those of Martin Van Buren, Samuel Young, C. E. 
Dudley, Walter Bowne, Roger Skinner, Livingston, Hammond, Hart, Barstow, Mallory, and 
Dayton. Not contented with voting, Marcy and Van Buren wrote a pamphlet, and travelled 
through the state, canvassing for Rufus King, as the anti-slavery candidate for the U. S. Sen- 
ate, to be sent there to oppose receiving Missouri as an extension of the area of the whip and 
the torture. Let the reader look into Ritchie's files of the Richmond Enquirer for the early 
part of 1820, and he will there see Polk's confederate menacing Rufus King for his northern 
fanaticism, and inveterate hostility to the 'peculiar institution.' On the I6th of November, 
1819, says the Evening Post, a general meeting of the citizens, at least 2000 being present, 
met in the City Hotel, New York, and " Resolved, that the existence of slavery in the 
United States, being, in the opinion of this meeting, a great political as well as moral evil, 
derogatory to the character of the nation, dangerous to the safety of its inhabitants, and op- 
posed to the benign spirit and principles of the Christian religion, they consider it the solenm 
duty of the national government, presiding over a people professing a high regard for free- 
dom and the just rights of men, to prevent, by all constitutional means, the further extension 
of such an evil in the United States ;" and that Jonathan Thompson, John T. Irving, Henry 
Rutgers, Walter Bowne, T. Addis Emmet, John Griscom, Abm. Bloodgood, Matthew Clark- 
son, Archibald Gracie, George Newbold, &;c., be a committee to check the progress of slaveiy, 
&c. In their address, written by the brother of Washington Irving, .'ipeaking of Missouri, 
they say, "It is no less a question, than whether, in this enlightened and philanthropic age, a 
mighty empire of slaves shall be permitted to be formed on the soil and under the sanction of 
republican America, and admitted into her Union ; or, whether that new empire is to be com- 
posed of men who shall have a con.stitutional, as well as national, right 'to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness;'" and fully maintained the humane doctrine, that Congress, after 
1808, could have stopt at once the horrid barbarities, both of the African and domestic, or Vir- 
ginian slave trade. Van Buren and the Regency have since changed for the worse. 

William Jay .shows, in his " View of the Action of the Federal Government," that the laws 
against the slave-trade, were in a great measure nullified, because the .slave power appointed 
the officials. And when Van Buren had been rejected in 1810, he concluded his mes.sage to 
" Congress thus : " I submit to your judirments whether this government, having been the first 
" to prohibit, by adequate; penalties, the slave-trade — the first to declare it piracy — should not be 
" the first, also, to forbid to its citizens all trade witli the slave factories on the coa.st of Africa ; 
" giving an example to all nations in this respect, which, if fairly followed, cannot fail to pro- 
"duce the most effective results in breaking up those dens of iniquity." This contrasts queerly 
with his inaugural, and the affair of tlic Amistead ; and I would now ask Van Buren whether 
the slave-breeding factcric's in Virginia, and the .slave coasters she employs in the Texan 
traffic in flesh and blood, are less "dens of iniquity" than those of Africa"? "Is it more 
wicked, more base, more cruel, to traffic in African savages [asks William JayJ than in 



VIRGINIA NATIVEISM ! V. B. ON CUBA. MEXICO, POLK AND m'laNE. 279 

NATivE-bora Americans — in WHrTE men, and women, and children — in the offspring of our 
own citizens, and not unfrequently, of very distinguished citizens 1 Yet it is this abomina- 
ble commerce that our government fosters and protects." " The government of the U. S.," 
said Van Buren to the British minister, Feb. 25, 1832, " protect-s by reasonable laws, the 
rights of the owners of that species of property in the States where it exists, and permits its 
transfer coastwise from one ol these States to another [Virginia to Texas, for example], un- 
der suitable restrictions to prevent the fraudulent introduction of foreign slaves." Tnat is, to 
secure to the home, or Virginia breeder, a sure monopoly of the detestable traffic ! Texas 
bribed the southern slave-trader, by providing in her constitution to give the U. S. a mono- 
poly of the supply ! ! ! 

There are many persons who do not fully comprehend the reasons why Polk, Van Buren, 
and others who have grown rich by abandoning the principles of seventy-six, went dead 
against Adams, when he proposed commissions to the Panama Congress, and jiow lustily 
advocate the opposite principle when they fear that their non-interference policy may affect 
Mexico. We will try to explain. In 1826, Mexico and Columbia meditated the invasion 
of Cuba, and intended to give the slaves there that freedom which they were conferring on 
their own. The slave-holding south was alarmed — the project was abandoned at the instance 
of this Union — but it might be renewed. Accordingly the Van Buren, who, in 1820, had 
instructed Congress not to receive Missouri witli slavery, addressed Cornelius P. Van Ness, 
the U. S. minister at the Spanish court, Oct. 22, 1829, bidding him urge on Spain to make 
peace with the Southern republics of America lest they should aid in freeing Cuba from 
slavery ! " Considerations (said Van Buren) connected with a certain clas6 of our popula- 
tion, make it the interest of the southern section of the Union that no attempt should be made 
in that island [Cuba] to throw off the yoke of Spanish dependence ; the first effect of which 
would be liS' the emancipation of a numerous slave population, which result could not but 
be very sensibly felt upon the adjacent shores of the United States." In the H. ai.' R. Mr. 
Floyd of Va. said, " I would rather take up arms to prevent than to accelerate such an occm- 
rence" as freedom to Cuba; and Van Buren, when WTiting to A. Butler, the U. S. agent in 
Mexico, cautioned him to oppose " the baneful spirit [of emancipation] designed to be intro- 
duced and propagated in the island of Cuba." 

Van Buren's letter to Poinsett, Oct. 16, 1829, freely admits that the people of Mexico were 
filled with prejudices of the most incurable character against that minister. He was accused 
jf " intermeddling in the domestic affairs of the republic," of setting up a political sort of free- 
masonry, of denouncing the established religion, and of being the enemy of the Mexican 
people. Was it friendly, was it wise in Van Buren and Jackson to recall this man, when the 
sister republic would no longer endure his presence, and hastily promote him to the head of 
the department of war"? The state legislatures of Mexico had expressed an abhorrence of his 
conduct, and insisted on Ids removal. Jackson recalled him when he became intolerable to 
Mexico, to exhibit, as Van Buren's secretarj', his scheme of a 200,000 standing army, which 
certainly was no help towards Van Buren's reelection in 1840. 

In Mr. Polk's message to Congress, Dec. 1845, he rebuked those European nations who 
wanted, as he said, to check the extension of the republic, thus : " The United States, sincerely 
desirous of preserving relations of good vinderstanding with all nations, Ji^cannot in silence, 
permit anv European interference on the North American Continent ; and should any such 
interference be attempted, will be ready to resist it at any and all hazards..^ f^Ex- 
isting rights of every European nation should be respected ; but it is due alike to our safety 
and our interests, that the efficient protection of our laws should be extended over our whole 
territorial limits, and that it should be distinctly announced to the world as our settled policy, 
that no future European colony or dominion shall, with our consent, be planted or established 
on any part of the North American continent. "=^ 

Here, Messrs. Polk and Marcy have dared any European power to aid in placing a mon- 
arch in Mexico on a constitutional throne, and negotiating a treaty with him, offensive and 
defensive, as this country did with France 68 years ago. How did they talk twenty years 
since "? As to Marcy, look into the Argus. 

In 1825, Messrs. Clay and Adams had proposed to send W. B. Rochester and others 
to represent the U. States in a Congress of American republics at Panama. To this, in the 
Senate, Van Buren led the opposition ; and the burden of his song, as usual, was, that it was 
unconstitutional. " We are, (said Van Buren) at that Congress, to stipulate in some form, 
and I care not in what, that we will resist any attempt at colonization by the powers of Europe, 
in this hemisphere, or within our own borders, if j'ou please; and that, in the event of any in- 
terference on their part, in the struggle between Spain and the Spanish American States, we 
will make common cause with the latter in resisting it." Such a course be denounced [see his 
Life by Holland], and laid it down as a principle (p. 264), that if we confederate to maintain 
governments like our own, by force of arms, we imitate the Holy Alliance of Europe ; and he 
was " against all alliances, against all armed confederacies, or confederacies of any sort." 

Thus much for Van Buren — now for Polk : 

In the house of Representatives, April, 1826, Louis McLane gave it as his view that in ex- 



^6 POlvK, ALLEN, CASS, AND VAN BUREN'S FOREIGN POLICY. 

tending our commercial relations with foreign nations, wc should keep clear of entangling 
alliances, and moved a resolution, as the "opinion of this house that the Government of the Uni- 
ted States ought not to be represented at the Congress of Panama, except in a diplomatic cha- 
racter, nor ought they to form any alliance, offensiv^eor defensive, or negotiate respecting such 
alliance with all or any of t!ie South American republics ; nar ought tliey to become parties with 
tJi£m, or either of them ^ to anij joint declaration for the purpose of preventing the interference of any 
of the European powers with their independence or form of government, or to any compact for the 
purpose of preventing colonization upon the continent cf America." 

The democratic party all voted for McLane's resolution ; and among the most decided friends 
to McLane's principle, not to oppose European colonization in America, were found James K. 
Polk, and his foreign secretary, James Buchanan. Their votes are on record. 

Mr. Polk's creed was democratic then, and it is democratic now, and it was then just the 
opposite of what it is now — and that is true, pure, unadulterated Van Buren democracy, 
which like O'Gimlet's finger-post, or the city weathercock, may be turned any way you 
please, or say yes and no in the same breath. In 1826, Mr. Polk said, that by voting 
lor M'Lane's resolve, we [the house] have declared, that our policy, now as ever, is 
neutrality; "that we will form no alliance with the South American republics;' nor shall 
we " become parties with them, or either of them, to any joint declaration, for the pur- 
pose of preventing the interference of any of the European powers with their independ- 
ence or form of government,' or ' to any compact for the purpose of preventing coloniza- 
tion on the continent of America.' These are sentiments, said Mr. Polk, to which I most 
heartily subscribe." No doubt he did — but Cuba might become free, and it was not then 
fully resolved upon to have Cuba annexed, Texas armexed, California annexed, Mexico 
annexed, all to the south, and with slavery in each of them. Missouri had got through 
with dilficulty, as a negro-importing slate — and these American republics, for which Polk, 
Buchanan, M'Lane, and Van Buren would do nothing were all anti-slavery, heretical, 
not of the true church. Now, however, when the ' peculiar institution' is to be strength- 
ened, O'Gimlet turns round, and Polk democracy, like Sir Francis Head to the Yankees, 
some nine years since, cries aloud, "Come if ye "dare !" 

Last January, Senator Allen of Ohio, who, like Cass, understands electioneering in the 
west, moved a strong resolve, in favor of the Polk Van Buren democracy, and warning 
the folks in Europe to look out for breakers, if they approached this coast with any more 
of their colonies. Senator Cass supported Allen as a matter of course. If we go behind 
Polk and Van Buren 's ' colonize if you please' principle of 1826, we soon arrive at Mr. 
Monroe's views. In his message of 1823, he declared " that we should consider any attempt 
on their [the powers of Europe's] part, to extend their system [colonization or monarchy] to 
any portion of this hemisphere, as dangerous to our peace." Was not this in strict accord- 
ance with the views of Adams and Clay in 1826, and of Polk now, though he opposed it 
then ? The N. Y. Sun took Polk's latest view six months in advance of his mes.sage, and 
so did its editor, Noah, in his other paper, the Messenger of June last. "When Polk was 
proposed for President, Noah spoke of him with contempt, as a third rate sort of person ; but 
Noah, Marcy, Webb and Polk go hand in hand now for " more slave territory. We can't- 
have too much." 

Mr. Guizot, minister of France, by a late speech, and the French legislature by a vote, have 
shown, that in case of war between England and this country, France would remain neutral, 
unless some convulsion were to change the essence of its government. Mr. Guizot is a friend 
of education, .science, the continuance of peace, and the mental and moral elevation of man. 

The correspondence of the National Intelligencer of Sept. 13, 1836, tells us, that "' not a 
solitary step has been taken to meet the just expectations of the Mexican minister. Men 
are openly recruited, armed, and marched through our country, not (as in the case of the Eng- 
lish auxiliaries in Spain) to sustain the actual government of Mexico, but to aid a iew thou- 
sand American citizens and adventurers from Europe in making war against that govern- 
ment! Profe.-^sions, therefore, are a mockery of the common sense of mankind." We have 
seen that the Polk — Van Buren democracy had no .sympathy with Mexico, Columbia, and the 
South American republics, which really sought freedom — we have .seen Jackson and Van 
Buren intriguing in Spain to keep the yoke aiound the necks of the iunnense black- population of 
Cuba. Wo too in Canada, secret encimragement was given at first, and from Nov. 6, when 
the revolt broke out in and near M(mtreal, to January, when the Caroline had been .sent over 
the Niag.ira i<'alls. Van Buren did nothing; but no .sooner was it made apparent that the 
struggle might be a protracted one, or a failure, than Van Buren and Marcy were Ibund 
among the persecutors of the poor exiles. On Nov. 21, 1838, Van Buren issued a proclama- 
tion again.st the .second Canada revolt, with a 

"Whereas disturbances have actually broken out anew in different parts of tlie two 
Canadas: And whereris, a hostile invasion has been made by citizens of the United States^ 
in conjunction with Canadians, and others, who, after forcibly .seizing upon the property of 
iheir peaceful n'^iglib.ir, for the purj)osc of eilecting their unlawful designs, are now in arms 



VAN BUREN AND CANADA. YOUNG AND CALHOUN ON SLAVERY. 281 

against the authorities of Canada, in perfect disregard of their own obligations as American 
citizens, and of the obligations of the Government of the country to foreign nations: Now, 
therefore, 1 have thought it necessary and proper to issue this proclamation, calling upon 
every citizen of the United States neither to give countenance nor encouragement of any kind 
to those who have thus forfeited their claim to the protection of their country ; upon those mis- 
guided or deluded persons who are engaged in them to abandon projects dangerous to their 
own country, fatal to those whom they profess a desire to relieve, impracticable of execution 

without foreign aid, which they cannot rationally expect to obtain, &c And 1 

hereby warn all those who have engaged in these criminal enterprises, if persisted in, that, 
whatever may be the condition to which thej' may be reduced, they must not expect the in- 
terference of this government, in any torm, on their behalf; but v^•ill be lelt reproached by 
every virtuous fellow-citizen, to be dealt with according to the policy and justice of that Gov- 
ernment whose dominions they have, in defiance of the known wishes and efforts of their own 
Government, and without the shadow of justification or excuse, nefariousl}' invaded." 

Compare this proclamation against the comrades of Von Shoultze, Woodrufle, Abbey, 
George, Lount, Matthews, Cardinal, Buckley, Chevalier, Daunais, Doane, Duquette, Honsh- 
man, Moreau, Leach, Lynde, Peeler, Perley, Phelps, the Sanguincttes, and Swete, all of 
whom were cruelly put to death in cold blood, with Jackson and Van Buren's Mexican and 
Texan polic)', where the object was to cover by a pretended revolt the robbery of 400^000 
square miles of God's heritage, that it might yield gain to idle, covetous, heartless slave deal- 
ers, and, worse still, enable tliem to control the government of this glorious republic for the 
jftirpose of perpetuating the most cruel scourge that can desolate the family of man. This 
proclamation encouraged the convict-driver of Van Dieman's land to redouble his cruelties — it 
showed no generous feeling for the injured. How could it ? There is not on earth a more 
heartless, cold, calculating enemy of free institutions than M. V. Buren — there perhaps 
never will be. 

Some years ago, Mr. Calhoun offered a report on the U. S. mail, in which an effort is made 
to show that northern laborers are but little better oft" than negro slaves. In reply. Dr. Chan- 
ning writes to Mr. Clay, thus : " Is it possible that such reasonings escaped from a man who 
has trod the soil of New England, and was educated at one of her colleges 1 Whom did he 
meet at that college ] The sons of her laborers, young men, whose hands had been hardened 
at the plough. Does he not know, that the families of laborers have furnished every depart- 
ment in life among us with illustrious men, have furni.shed our heroes in war, our statesmen 
in council, our orators in the pulpit and at the bar, our merchants whose enterprises embrace 
the whole earth 1 What ! the laborer of the free state a slave, and to be ranked with the de- 
spised negro, whom the lash drives to toil, and whose dearest rights are at the mercy of irre- 
sponsible power ! If there be a firm independent spirit on earth, it is to be found in the man, 
who tills the field of the free states, and moistens them with the sweat of his brow." 

Although, in a report by Col. Young, in 1839, adverse to anti-slavery politics, and sustain- 
ing what is called the Atherton gag in Congress, he .spoke strongly against whathe called 
the boiling cauldron of abolitionism, its misguided fury and ferocious spirit, inebriated abo- 
Utionism, anti-masonic and abolition phrenzies, and the hopelessness of southern slave eman- 
cipation while northern agitation continues, yet it would seem that he is firm])r opposed to 
Texan annexation, with slavery as her dower. In a discussion in the Senate of New York 
on the '27th of January la.st, Col. Young said he was opposed to the admission of Texas as a 
slave state, and tliat Governor Wright" had said he was opposed to it. Mr. Hard remarked, 
that believing Col. Young to be against that wicked measure, he and his whig friends had 
been aoxiou.s^for his return to the U. S. Senate (in place of DLx), as that would have prevented 
annexation. That had Governor Wright, a7id his peculiar friends, been l^onei^t and sincere in 
their professions of hostility to it. Young might have been returned — that they could have 
secured that result— but that Wriglit had so managed that tlie kinders got both senators (that 
Polk might carry annexation), and Benton {hunker) had been put in Young's office. That 
both sections of the democracy had supported Wright, who had had it in his power to have 
prevented the spread of slavery by securing the election of Young, but that, had he acted up to 
his professions, it might have stood in his way to the presidency, in the minds of the slave- 
holders, and that he had interfered to the contrary, and sent a message to his friends to prevent 
a caucus Avhich would have canied it into effect. Mr. Beers said that it was considered (by 
Wright) bad policy to send a senator to Washington opposed to the Texas measure. No 
doubt! Read Van Buren's annexation letter, and say if he is really opposed to it. Read 
Vache's invitation to Van Buren to attend the Ijall erf' the " kindred spirits determined to sustain 
the government in its claim to the Texas. and Oregon territories," and his an&wer, aiiprovinq 
of their object— and remember, that while old Spain, in 1829, occupied Tampico, with 4,000 
troops, intent on reducing Mexico, Van Buren was then in the market offering the MexicaD 
rebels cash for Texas. Again, on 2d of Sept. last, we find him addressing J. D. Kellogg, tot . 
the public eye, from LindPnwald, and assuring him that he considers every obstacle that may 
be offered to the completion 'of the Texas spoliation " unwise and highly inexpedient," and that 



282 GREELEY ON t^LORIDA. CANADA IN 1837. 

if these states should be involved in war with Mexico in consequence of annexation, he (Van 
Buren) cannot doubt but that Polk would be supported " by the hearts and hands of the whole 
people." All this might have been looked for from the man, who, in the teeth of the constitu- 
tional provision, that Congress may make all needful laws for the territory of the Union, 
assured North Carolina, when seeking a re-election, that Governor Dodge's slaveholding in 
Wisconsin, and Judge Dot}'s in Iowa, was legal, and could not be interfered with ! Intoxicat- 
ing liquors, slaver}', covetousness of other men's lands, what curses they are ! Florida was 
bought for six millions to please .slaveholders, and is now a slave state. We had an Indian 
war there, to protect slavery — " a war [says Horace Greeley] provoked and commenced by our 
people, originating in land-stealing, abominable frauds and slavery, and which we steadily re- 
fused to terminate on any terms which did not require the utter expulsion of the Seminoles 
from the territory. The reason for this was the proved impossibility of cherishing Slavery in 
the neighborhood of Indians, as the negroes ran away to the Indians and were harbored, by 
them. So we drove the savages to desperation, pursued them through the swamps and ever- 
glades, shot some of their women and children, and starved many more, until we compelled 
the remnant to submit to exile. The cost of these various wars and purchases to the people of 
the United States has not been one farthing short of fifty millions of dollars over and above all 
they have received for Florida lands, to say nothing of very many valuable lives," 



OM 



CANADIAN ANNEXATION AND INSURRECTION. 



T%e Canadian Insurrection in 1837 and 1838. — It injured Van I3uren and his Priends. — Brink' 
erhoff, John Adams, Franklin, Dkecker, Randolph, Pitkin, Felix Grundy, President Monroe, 
Calho^m, Hull, Smyth, Southwick, Macon, Widgery, Welk, Clay, Ritchie, and the North 
American Revieio, on Canadian Annexation. — Parnell on Caimdian Independence. — Eustis, 
Desha, Swarttvcmt, and Wheaton, on taking Canada. — Were the Canadians justified in resists 
ing in 1837 and 1838 ? — A hnef reply. — Lord Durham's Report on that question. — His afflict- 
ing details of Colonial Oppression. — Lord Goderich's reply to my threat of Revolt. — Sir F. B. 
Head. — Durham harshly treated for telling unpleasant truths. — Would tlve Conquest of Canada 
be an easy task, and ought it to be attempted ? — Error of the Men of 1837. — Letter, Col. W. E. 
Moore. — Letter, General G. M. Keim. — Letter, Geo. Dawson. — Letter, Col. R. M. Johnson. 

The insurrections, in the Canadas, in 1837 and 1838, and the movement in Maine, in 1839, 
affected very unfavorably the foundations of Van Buren 's power; and, if it were essentially 
neces.sary, I think I might produce conclusive proof, that, by exciting the suspicion of the 
slaveholding south, and the indignation of vast multitudes in the free north, east, and west, 
his management of public affairs, connected with or arising out of these insurrections and 
frontier movements, were, independent of the question of the currency, most embarrassing to 
his administration, and, in 1840, the cause of his political failure. 

There must have been powerful causes at work, to turn a majority of 26,000 for Van Buren, 
in 1836, into a minority of 146,000 in 1840, to induce New York to .set aside a president born 
on the banks of the Hudson, in 1840, by a majority of 13,000, in order to place in his 
.stead a native Virginian, after having given her suffrage for the former, in 1836, by a 
majority exceeding 28,000, to induce every northern frontier county, without a single excep- 
tion, to cry out, in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, 
New Hanipshire and Maine, in 1840, " Away, away, with Van Buren !" while Georgia, 
North Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi, in the south, betrayed by their 
votes equal impatience. Endorsed by Andrew Jackson, endowed by nature Avith great 
ability for intrigue, ever ready to contract with the leaders for the subservience of their 
followers, an experienced, ambitions and imprincipled politician, pos.sessed of power for 
twelve long years, with presses and profligates at command, the national revenues in 
the han ds of his chosen partizans, and 60,000 offices, besides vast contracts at his control. 



VAN BUREN IN 1840. OPINIONS ON THE CANADAS. 283 

This was his position when he was defeated by General Harrison, who had no official 
patronage at all in his gift, and no other office' in his possession but that of clerk of a 
law court in Hamilton county, Ohio. Harrison's civil and military qualities and charac- 
ter were as well known, and remembered, in 1836, when he received but 73 electoral votes 
out of 294, as in 1840, when he obtained 174, but Van Buren's reputation had deluded mul- 
titudes in 1836, who, in 1840, knew him by his works. Even in 1840, alter having con- 
demned him in many things, I, being ignorant of nine-tenths of his early history, believed 
that much that appeared inexplicable would at lengtli be cleared up, and those who bad in- 
finitely better means of knowing, assured me that such would be the case. Colonel Johnson, 
whose generous heart prompts him to favor freedom, endorsed Van Buren in the most 
emphatic terms. Disliking Van Buren personally, owing him no favor, a suflerer by his 
partiality and injustice, poor but at heart independent, I supported him in 1840, while I de- 
nounced, through the press, that extension of slavery's horrors, of which it is now evident to 
all that he was the willing instrument of the south, to carry it into effect. Calhoun did in- 
deed kill him with kindness. Virginia voted for the New Yorker, and New York for the Vir- 
ginian ; and besides Virginia, Van Buren got 25 votes from the slave states, including eleven 
from Calhoun and M'Duffie for S. Carolina, and from the free states just twelve, in the 
place of 140 only four years before ! His Mexican and Canadian policy ,_ the profligacy of 
his expenditures, the wide-spread distress and ruin caused by the blow up of his banking and 
financial schemes, his cringing course toward the slave power, tlie corrupt and dishonest 
agents he employed, his donble-faced game with the tariff, through Hoyt, Buder and others, 
and the want of syinpathy and respect which he and his friends manifested for real demo- 
cracy and free institutions ; these, added to his militia law scheme, and the bad reputation he 
had with those who had known him long and well, crushed him to the ground. If he has the 
materials to show to the world, that one solitary aspiration for the welfare of the millions, who 
had raised him to high honor among men, ever came from his selfish and sordid soul, it is 
time that he took a thousand piastres from his hoarded stores, and employed some other than 
Benjamin Franklin Butler to revise Holland's romance for a more authentic record of his 
doings. I thought well of him and his while I dared to do so ; and if here I have said any- 
thing in error to his prejudice would, for the honor of human nature, and of the institutions of 
a people placed as the vanguard of rational freedom, most gladly admit it. 

During the discussion, in Congress, of the resolve to notify England that the joint occu- 
pancy ot Oregon must soon cease, Mr. Brinkerhoff remarked, that it had been said, and he 
believed it, that the battle for Oregon, if it came at all, must be fought in Canada, and " he 
was glad that Britain had an assailable point here, where we would reach her with effect. 
"Take Canada, and Oregon would fall into our hands as a maUer of course." There is much 
of this sort of language afloat now, but very few remember how much more of it there was in 
1811 to 1815. Washington wanted Canada. John Adams desired Laurens to make an effort 
to get it in 1782. Franklin's writings show that he was most anxious to attach it to the Union. 
As far back as 1759, and 1760, we find him urging England to get and keep it in the same 
interest as the other colonies. Congress took the same view, as witness the Canadian clause in 
the constitution of 1778. The Washington National Intelligencer, then the organ of Madison's 
administration, said, November, 1813, " We may not obtain possession of these territories 
[the northern colonies] next summer, but eventually they must be ours." The editors go on 
to state, that the Canadas embrace and command the outlet and entrance, and share the whole 
extent of the mighty St. Lawrence, one of the two great waters of N. America, and the natu- 
ral channel of import and export of many millions of men — that the conquest of Canada 
" was in vain attempted by the heroes of the revolution "—but that once gained tliey could bid 
defiance to England— that GLuebec guards the St. Lawrence more effectually than any other 
fortress in a like position in the world— that the transportation of the means of offensive war 
to the frontiers would not be difficult— that 100,000 troops might soon be collected on tlie St, 
Lawrence — and that " on our own exertions and united efforts alone depends the time when it 
[Canada] shall be ours." Not many months after, the same paper said, " when we entered 
into the war, the people, and we amongst them, and. perhaps the government too, made too 
light of the conquest of the adjoining provinces of the enemy." 

Among the opponents of the war were Harmanus Bleecker, Geo. Tebbetts, Garret Wen- 
dell, W. A. Duer, James Emott, Jesse Oakley, and Elisha Williams. In April, 1815, they 
addressed the public in these words: " Another object of the war was the conquest of Canada, 
and its cession was more than once intimated to be an indispensable condition of peace." la 
the H. of R., Dec. 10, 1811, John Randolph of Va., opposed the notion of conquering Cana- 
da, thus : " What a horrible retort might not be made on the Southern and Western slaveholdmg 
states! How was the Chesapeake to be protected 1 He wished the house to consider the 
chances of failm-e and count the cost, to think of the blood that would be spilt, and the empty- 
coffers from which the cost is proposed to be defrayed." Mr. Pitkin, H. ofR., "had no wish 
to see the heterogeneous mass of Canadian population represented on this floor, nor to add Can- 
ada and Nova Scotia to the republic." That wa,s honest. I like it. To say, We dont want 
any connection with you, is much better than to invite by laws, and then insult the stranger 
thus asked to come, by Philadelphia liots, and New York riative corporations. 



28 1 GRUNDY, MONROE, CALHOUN, WEBSTER, AND Wfii5AtON, 6S CANADA. 

On the 9lhof Dec. 1811, Felix Grundy, a member of Congress for Tennessee, and on the 
cominillee of foreign relations, declared, in his reply to John Randolph, on the question o. 
augmenting the forces ^^ " that he would drive the British from North America, and de- 
^^ prive them of the Canadas', and would receive the French retugees as adopted brothers. 
i:^ Although a southern man, he was willing and desirous to have the Canadas. They were 
i;^ nece.ssary to balance the increasing weight of the .southern and western states, "by the 
^:^ accession of Louisiana. If this weight is not balanced in this way, there is reason to fear 
^^ oppression by the gov^emment." Anotiier version of his remarks, in the N. Y. Ev. Post, 
reads thus : '• I am waiting to receive the Canadians as adopted brethren ; it will have bene- 
ficial political eiiects ; it will preserve the equilibrium of the government. When Louisiana 
shall be fully peopled, the northern states will lose their power; they will be at the discretion 
of others ; they can be depre.ssed at pleasure, and this nation may be endangered — I therefore 
feel anxious not only to add the Floridas to the south, but the Canadas to the north of this 
empire." Mr. Grundy was Van Buren's attorney-general, and perhaps one of the best men of 
his party. President Polk was his law student. Grundy was the son of an Eneli.-h emi- 
grant. In Oct. 1814, Colonel Monroe, afterwards president, said, "we must not be content 
"with defending ourselves— different feelings must be touched, and apprehensions excited in 
"the British government. By pushing the war into Canada we secure the conunand of the 
"Indian tribes, and command their services." In the session of 1812, before the war, John 
C. Calhoun said in Congress, that " So far from being unprepared [for war], he believed that 
g:^ in four weeks from the time that a declaration of war would be heard on our frontier, the 
^^ whole of Upper and a part of Lower Canada would be in our possession." General 
Hull .said to the Canadians, July 12, 1813, " I come prepared for every contingency — I hav^e 
a force which will look down all opposition." Four months after General Smyth said, " In a 
few days the troops under my command will plant the American standard in Canada." Gen- 
erals M'Clure and Wilkinson spoke Avilh equal confidence; but in the fall of 1813, the latter 
otficially reported to the .secretary at war, that "The whole male population of Canada are 
^^ universally and actively hostile to om- designs of conquest U])on that country." Solomon 
•Soulhwick, in the Albany iiegister, then the olhcial journal of this state, Nov. SO, 1813, asks 
the cabinet, " Are you afraid to take Canada lest it might create a preponderating influence 
against the Virginia dyuastj' 1 Is there a secret understanding on the subject V At all times, 
to the hour of his death, Southwick continued to assert that the indisposition of pretended pa- 
triots in the slave states was the true cause of the failures in Canada ; and considering the 
superannuated, eccentric, and feeble old men often placed in command, and the sentence of 
death against Hull, which was a mere waste of time and money, as far as punishment went, 
he had some cause so to speak. New York was opposed to the war. She voted against it in 
Congress, and the Assembly at Albany was against it. The East, with an unprotected com- 
merce afloat, was against it ; and a powerful southern minority steadily opposed it. Nathan- 
iel Macon voted for the war, but he did not like it. In Jan. 1810, he said in Congress, that 
'■' .seUing aside the affair of the Che.sapeake, France and Britain were equal aggressors. Ought 
we to sacrifice our property wliich floats on the ocean for two such countries as Canada V 
Massacliuselts voted in Congress against war, 8 to G — New York, 11 to 3 — Connecticut, 7 to 
none — Rhode Island, *2 to none — New Jeiscy, 4 to 2. Mr. Hor.sey of Del. said that " if all 
the states which had voted for war had shown themselves as hearty as Kentucky, we would 
have long since overwhelmed Canada, where the people were united in resisting us." Daniel 
Webster, then from N. H. said, Jan. 3, 1814, " that if tne cause had been one which the people 
had espoused with ardor, and been united upon, Canada, to the Avails of duebec, would have 
been ours in thirty days." 

Dr. Eusiis, War Secretary, said, in 1812, " We can take the Canadas without soldiers ; we 
have only to send officers iiito the province, and the people, disaffected to their own govern- 
ment, will rally round om- standard." In the fall of 1813, the National Intelligencer said, 
•' Since then our enemy forced us to war, and compelled us to territorial reprisals, for her 
oceanic outrages, and still persists in refusing a recognition of our violated rights, we trust our 
readers will generally agree with us, that the Canadas once ours, they shall be, as these 
states liav<; been, forever divorced from Britisli sovereignty." The present American Eitvoy 
at Berlin, HeniyWheaton, who has been rocalled,doubtless to occupy an important trust here, in 
case of war, was editor of the National Advocate in 1813, and no paper in the Union was more 
decided in its lone, in favor of taking and keeping Canada for ever. At Tammany Ilall. on 
the 25th of Nov. anniversary, General Dearborn being present. Collector Swartwout's brother, 
John, gave as a toast, " War, stern, unrelenting war, till the haughty foe acknowledge our 
rights to tlie waters ol' the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi." On the same day, the Inde- 
pendent, Veteran f'orps of Artillery uf the city of New York, drank, as their iOth regular 
toast, " Florida and the Canadas — necessarily ours by conquest or purchase," as their llth, 
" Cuba, Texas and Mexico; voluntarily ours as free states of tlie Union" — and as their 1st, 
"The destiny of our country, brilliant and co-extensive with our national boundaries, the 
Atlantic, Pacific, and Polar Star." And in the Nat. Intell. of Oct. 17, 1812, it is noted that 



CLAY, RITCHIE, PARNELL, DESHA, AND DURHAM, ON CANADA. 



285 



^100 000 were voted to the President, '■ for ilie purpose of taking the Flondas. Joseph Desha, 
oC Kentucky in Congress, Jan. 23, ISIO, said, - We ought to lake Canada and Nova Scotia, 
and expel the English from N. A.— the militia will do it. Indeed we have hut to hold c'Ut to 
the colonist^ that we mean to releas,? them from their chains, and they will almost take n 
themselves '' Colonel R. M. Johnson was also for war and the conquest ot the northern colo- 
nies At a pul)lie dinner in Bufialo, Oct. 25th, 1813, at which Henry Clay's relative. General 
Peter B Poller presided and at which General Harrison and Commodore Perry were guesis, 
the 12th reo-ulaV toast was, '• A free navigation from auebec to New Orleans hy the lakes"— 
the 17th was '■ The inhabitants of Canada— we tight not to conquer them, out the policy which 
made them our enemies. Mav they soon be united to the Ameri.^an Republic. ' On the 31st 
of Dec 1811 Mr Wid^ery told Congress to '• give New England authority, and she 11 take 
Canada without putting vou to any trouble.^' On the Land Bounty Bill, in the U. S. Senate, 
Feb 1814 Mr W Wells of Delaware said, that although disaster had attended its progress, 
'• Canada is '^till the lond object of our wishes,^' but that there would be great dithculty in get- 
tin'- and sri'i greater in keeping it. Mr. Grosvenor of Columbia Co. N. Y., in Congress, Dec. 
I8i4 quoted from Mr. Clav^s speech in Congress, on the eve of the war, as iollows: '• 1 am 
"not' sir in favor of cherishing tlie passion of conquest, but 1 may be permitted to conclude 
" bv declaring- my hope to see, ere long, the New United States, if you will allow me the ex- 
'• pi-ession enlbracins not onlv the old thirteen states, but the entire country east ot the Mis- 
'^ sissippi,'including East Florida, and H^ some of the territories to the north of us also. 
Grosvenor's laiiffuage was eloquent and impassioned against any other than a war lor de- 
fence He condemned annexation on the north, and said that the conquest ot Canada had 
been '^ avowetl in all the gazettes of the government, in the speeches ot those members who 
declared the wa'- and in the proclamations of the generals who had conaucted it, nor had u 
been disavowed by the executive.'' The Richmond Enqvirer, then edited, as now, bv T. Rit- 
chie and those he trusted, and speaking, no doubt, the language of Jefierson, declared in Feb. 
1814 that - W^ienever Canada nods to her fall. Great Britain will be just, and not till then 
'• shall we obtain anv security for the rights and piosi)erity of our countrymen, the honor and 
- independence of the country." Some lit^teen years later, the Nmih Amtrncan Renew said, 
^'- Most ardently it i^ to be wished, that the happy example which has so prosperously attachea 
•to our Union on the south, the French colony of Louisiana, would eflectually point the 
" way to an equally auspicious junction of the French colonies ot the north. . . . VVhac 

" a noble accession would it constitute to our republic. ' Again, in 1832, Sir Henry Parnell, 
a member of the Whig government, in his work on Financial Reform, took ground m lavor 
of cutting the connection. He said that '• With respect to Canada, including our rther pos- 
>.essions on the continent of North America, no ca.sc can be made out to show that we should 
not have every commercial advantage we are supposed now to have, it it were made an inde- 
pendent state." Neither our manufactures, foreign commerce, nc.r shipping would be injured 
bv such a measure" Many persons would be inclined to ditler with the baronet on this 
question Thou-h an Irishman, he represented in parliament my native city, and m argu- 
ment in private I have seen him go still failher in favor ot independence to the north. It 
thrown otfby En-land, which is a very unlikely event just now, the colonies could not I 
tear, sustain an independent character; and 1 trust they will take waniing by die signs ot the 
times here when applause and high station is reserved tor our Van Burens, Butleis, Walk- 
ed Ba".crs LaSnces. Marcys: Morrises, Wetmores, Polks Caye Johnsons, Houston.s 
Wri-hts' Casses and Woodburys, and seek no change but that which education and gradual 
improvements can secure to tliem. Railroads, canals, revenue laws rightly framed, high- 
ways, and the Primer, properly taught, are patent and powerful auxihanes to annexation, and 
withal cheap, and uset'ul to (mrselves. , , -.^ , • ,. r j j c t-t 

Why did Canadians revolt in 1837 ]-I have read the Declaration ot Independence, of 1 / S, 
carefully and there is no one cause of revolt slated in it, but what was applicable to the condi- 
tion of Canada in 1837. The British Parliament, by a solemn act, appointed the Earl ot 
Crhai^ oneof Englaiid's most eminent nobles, and the son-in-law of the prime minister, 
Earl Gre\-, to go to Canada as its supreme governor, and inquire whether any rea grievances 
that would warrant revolt had existed. His report is on record ; and so dark ^re the reci als 
that had it been possible, its worst features would never have .seen tlie light. His opportune 
sincerity embittered those whom his statements condemned. Premeditated insult met him on 
his landing in Britain. The presses of the ottended party ceaselessly calumniated him The 
royal court is said to have slighted him. His feelings were wounded. His health gradually 
decUned and bat a lew short months elapsed, ere John George Lambton the Ibth in lineal ae. 
Sit froin RoI,ert de Lambton, a proud ^aron of 1513, though smrounded by a 1 the comforts 
which 500,000 dollars of a yearly income can produce or be.stow, had gone to his asti^^t- J 
wa.s not personally acquainted with him, and only saw him once in my lite, at the liouse of his 
relative Mr Ellici : but I remember that he was for many years a co-worker with the inde- 
fatigable Hume aiii Lord Althorp in the House of Commons, in denouncing and exposing 
oppressLi^iS wakeful extravagance; that he opposed the fettermg ol the press, and iLe de- 



286 LORD DURHAM^S APOLOGY FOR REVOLT IN CANADA. 

tested corn law of 1816, and earnestly urged a far more thorough reform than was obtained 
in the popular representation in 1832. Perhaps Van Buren has been guilty of more heinous 
offences than his celebrated invitation to the autocrat of Canada, erewhile "the envoy of Eng- 
land's queen at the court of the autocrat of Siberia. 

Lord Durham officially stated to the dueen's ministers, that it would almost seem as if the 
object of those who framed the Canadian .system of government " had been the combining of 
|:^apparently popular institutions with an utter absence of all efficient control of the people 
over their rulers," that the government was irresponsible, and its motives and actual purposes 
shrouded in mystery from the colonists; that a " family compact," a small body of intriguing 
men, retain '' a monopoly of power and profit,"' and that even a native of Britain or Ireland, 
if not one of this combined faction, is " less an alien in a foreign country" than in Canada; 
that every seventh farm in Upper Canada had been bestowed to uphold one small denomina- 
tion of christians — that the Irish Catholics, though very numerous, had been excluded from a 
share in the government — that settlers from the United States had been harassed, and the 
titles to their lands called in question — that parliamentary elections of high officers of govern- 
ment had been carried by outrageous violence — that the orange societies, oaths and proces- 
sions which caused so niuch iirblooJ in Ireland, had been greatly encouraged in Canada by 
the executive — that the administi'ation of justice was impure, and that a colonist feels that his 
link in the empire is " one of remote dependence" — that blocks of the public lands had been 
granted to favorites who had, in many cases, never seen nor settled on them, and that they 
" place ths actual settler in an almo.st hopeless condition" — that emigrants from Britain are ill 
treated by the Toronto authorities, and retire to the U. S. in disgust — that many parts are 
without roads, mills, post-offices, and churches, the people getting poor, education neglected, 
and the valuable lanas set apart for schools by orders of the Duke of Portland 40 years ago, 
ever since withheld from that useful purpose — that the U. S. frontier is a picture of prosperity, 
while that of Canada is the reverse — that unless the .system of government is changed, the 
people would not long support British rule — that Governor Head had procured the return of a 
House of Assembly, the members of which were elected under such circumstances " as to ren- 
der them peculiarly objects of suspicion and reproach to a large number of their country- 
men" — that '■ in a number of instances, too, the elections were carried by the unscrupulous 
exercise of the influence of the government, and by a di.splay of violence on the part of the 
tones, who were emboldened by the countenance afforded to them by the government; that 
such facts and such impressions produced in the country an exasperation and a despair of 
good government, which extended far beyond those who had actually been defeated at the 
polls" — that the legislature thus corruptly elected for one year, had prolonged its existence 
other three, " in defiance of all constitutional right," and "Such are the lamentable results 
of the political and social evils which have so long haras.sed the Canadas; and at this moment 
we are obliged to adopt immediate measures against dangers so alarming as are rebellion, 
foreign invasion, and depopulation in consequence of the desertion en masse of a people re- 
duced to despair." 

England's queen and parliament constituted Lord Durham an umpire between revolted 
subjects and the authorities. This was his report. Yet was my valuable property scattered 
to the four winds of heaven — myself declared an outlaw -and at the end of nine years. I do 
not find enough of nobleness of soul in the great lonntry, or its rulers who caused the wrong, to 
reverse that outlawry, because I do not choose humbly to beseech a minister, whose predeces- 
sor better deserved impeachment than some whom England's annals mention as having been 
so treated. I am, I believe, the only political onilaw of 1837, belonging to Upper Canada. 

In a secret despatch, Lord Durham to Lord (xienelg, dated Cluebec, Aug. 0, 1838, says: 
" My sole purpose is to impress upon jour Lordship my own conviction, which has been 
formed by personal experience, that even the best informed persons in England can hardly 
conceive the disorder or disorganization which, to a careful inquirer on the spot, is manifest 
in all thins^s pertaining to government in these colonies. Such words scarcely express the 
whole truth ; not government merely, but society itself seems to be dissolved ; the vessel of the 
state is not in great danger only, but looks like a complete wreck." And again, Sept. 2-lth, 
Lord Durham writes : — " Nor shall I regret that I have wielded these despotic powers in a 
manner which, as an Englishman, I am anxious to declare utterly inconsistent with the Bri- 
tish constitution, until I learn what are the constitutional principles that remain in force when 
a whole constitution is suspended ; whnt principles of a British constitution hold good in a 
country where the peoj)le's money is taken without the people's consent, where representative 
government is annihilated, where martial law has been the law of the land, and where the 
trial by jury exists only to defeat the ends of justice, and to provoke the righteous scorn and 
indignation of the community. I should indeed regre; the want of applicability in my own 
principles of government, or my own incapacity for applying them, n<id the precise course 
which I should think it imperative on me to pursue in a land of freedom and of law, proved 
to be the only one that I could adopt in a country which long misgoveinment and sad dissen- 
sion have brought to a condition that may fairly be described as one of constituted anarchy.". 



AN APOLOGY FOR THE AUTHOR's CONDUCT IN CANADA. 287 

With records like these on the journals of parliament, is it noble, is it just, is it according 
to the English notion ol fair dealing, to proscribe a man from visiting the place of his birth, 
and the grare^ of his children — to hold up that proscription for nine long years — to require 
concession from the injured? Did I not for many a long year, in the legislature of Cana- 
da, oppose all wasteful extravagance, lend an active help, to forward the public business, to 
expose dishonesty, to shame partial judges, to remove real grievances 1 Did I not, through a 
fearless press, amid endless proseciUions, with the plaudits of commimity, stand up for constitu- 
tional right, and to the last declare we would ask no more 1 Did I not carry to England the 
petitions of a majority of ail the male population of Upper Canada; and while others, with 
not a tithe of the popular influence I possessed, were courting power for place, which I never 
stooped to do, did I not warn Lord Goderich, now Earl of Ripon, five years before the outbreak, 
what it would end in, if justice was denied and the colonists scorned 1 In that nobleman's 
reply to my statement, a document of great length, and possessing much sound reasoning, and 
which, had not its promises been disregarded by his successors, there would have been no 
insurrection in 1837, he says, " Mr. Mackenzie has concluded this paper by predictions of 
" bloodshed and civil war, and a dissolution of the connection with this kingdom. He may 
" well suppose that such a pro-sjDCCt would be regarded by his majesty's government with a 
" degree of concern and anxiety to which it would be difficult to give any adequate expressions. 
" But against gloomy prophecies of this natiu-e, every man conversant with public business must 
" learn to fortify his mind. They have ever been the resource of those who endeavor to extort 
"from the fears of government concessions, in favor of which no adequate reasons can be 
" given." Does Lord Durham's Report contain no adequate reasons 1* Did my remon- 
strances, yet on file in the colonial office, contain none 1 Did the continued proofs of public con- 
fidence which I obtained while in England, and on my return to Canada, contain none 1 Had 
J been desirous of exciting a loanton insurrection would I have gone to London tl'us to warn the 
colonial ofl[ice to prepare for it ■? Would I have remained there 18 months, earnestly and anx- 
iously urging these improvements in the commercial code — in the postage .system — in the 
communications between Halifax and Britain — and in the municipal concerns of the Cana- 
das, which were so much required by all parties 1 So far was I from being ultra in my 
views, that I frankly told Lord Howick and Mr. Stephen, that if they would give us a man of 
business habits as governor, in exchange for the old military hero who nad so long been con- 
trolled by " the family compact," so justly condemned by Lord Diuham, we would try to get oa 
without that full measure of self-control which our memorials required, so far as it was op- 
posed to the colonial system. On my return to Canada, a committee of a new legislature, on 
which I served as chairman, went fully into an examination of the condition of the colony. 
The result of our labors was an octavo of some 500 pages ; and, armed with that volume and 
the baron of Glenelg's instructions in repl}-, Sir Francis Head dropped down among us in mid 
winter, as a reformer, than which a more indiscreet and unwise choice never was made by 
any administration — neither have I a doubt but that Lord Melbourne was as sensible of his un- 
fitness when he sent him out, as he seems to have been when Sir Francis had set the colonies 
on fire, through the troubles of 1837. He began by exhibiting in Upper Canada part of Lord 
Gosford's instructions, which he had been dii-ected to keep secret — their publication stopt the 
supplies in Lower Canada, and da.shed the cup of popularity from Lord Gosford's lips, for 
they showed insincerity at head-quarters. Head's conduct as governor, slandering the United 
States, encouraging orange societies, quarrelling with the advisers he had chosen, but never 
once consulted, stating falsehoods and getting convicted of so doing, was such that supplies 
were refused to him also, and he had to set every semblance of popular rule at defiance, in 

* I am sincerely sorry that a single individual remains outlawed or banished from Canada, or held in con- 
finement in Van Dieman's Land, relative to the insurrection. England was so clearly in the wrong, by the 
horrible misrule she siitFered to e.xist, that when she saw men like me turn round and do our very ulinost to 
pacify the frontiers, after beiuR plundered of everything, she should have taken the risk of returning to their 
families the innocent victims of her carelessness. I am very cool now; and yet, although I have a packet of 
most important papers in the hands of a friend for safe keeping, relative to Canadian afl'airs, 1 think it too early 
to write an account of the events of 183G to 18,31?. I have preserved some 200 letters of the Nary Island cor- 
respondence, but it >3 not yet a litting time to give such matters to the world. So strong is my present convic- 
tion of the impropriety of adding any inflammatory materials to the Oregon blaze that, although the worthy 
printer of my " Sons of the Emerald Isle " pressed me to allow him to finish it, I have stopt after the second 
number, rather than continue just now these e.xciting relations of ancient misrule. I never have played wil- 
lingly into the hands of the enemies of real reform anywhere, and will not now. The following note was 
addressed to me, by that true and long and well-tried friend of poor and rich, Joseph Hume, when I was last 
leaving London. 
To VV. L. Mackenzie : " Bryanston Squafk, June 24th, 1833. 

" Dkar Sir : I cannot allow you to leave this country without expressing my sense of the great advantage 
the people of Uppfr Canada have derived from your exertions which have been unwearied and persevering 
since your arrival ; and, I may add. comparatively successful in obtaining many alterations from Lord Gode- 
rich in orders respecting the future Government of Upper Canada. I am sorry to observe by some of the pro- 
ceedings of Mr. Stanley, that he is rather disposed to promote, than to punish the men who have been re- 
moved from Upper Canada for improper conduct, and thereby to encourage misgovernment on the part of the 
public officers of that Province, which Lord Goderich's late preceedings were calctilated to prevent- 

Jossra Hvuc." 



288 THE CANADIAN INSITRRECTIONS OF 1837-38. 

order to deceive his superiors in England ihrough a modi legislatui-e, obtained on the principle 
which Lord Durham too truly described when it was too late to recall the past. Sir Francis 
writes to Lord Melbourne alter this fashion : '' On my arrival in Upper Canada I Ibund my- 
self not only bounded on the one side by Lower Canada on the eve of a revolt, and on the 
other side, by the United States, whose GOVERNMENT, as well as people, M-ere secretly 
usin"- their influ^3nce to exterminate from the continent of America monarchical institutions, 
but 1° found myself exposed to and opposed by a republican house of assembly." After my re- 
turn from England I had nothing whatever to do with either government or people in these 
States ; and thev had no part incausing the revolt ; nor did the native Americans in Canatla 
take the laboring oar in it. If this country had secret emissaries I never knew of it, nor do (. 
believe it. The' revolt in 1837 began Nov. 6, in Montreal. That of 1838 never would have 
bi-^un at all, had Lord Durham been kindly treated by England; but his wliig friends allow- 
edlaim to be denounced in the House of Peers, for an act of kindness and humanity towards 
eio-ht Canadians sent to Bermuda ; and in the House of Commons sanctioned the insult his 
enemies Lad prepared elsewhere. ^lis faults and foibles were manj- — I may not deny that. 
But he had a manly soul, was harshly treated, meant right, would have conciliated all parties 
had he been let alone, and his indiscreet removal was the signal for new troubles, in which I 
had no part whatever, although for several years, I confess it with regret, I would gladly have 
witnessed war on this continent. Calmer reflections have since returned — and in the spirit 
in which 1 remained so long in Europe, ever anxious to avert the causes of war do I now 
write this statement. It is a pleasant thing to see the statesmen of Britain at length pursuing 
that liberal policy which even a Himie, a Roebuck, and a BuUer cannot fmd lault with. 
"What honest heart on this side the Atlantic, would darken the dawnings of a better day to 
mankind, with tlie bitter and bloody scourge of war, as if there were not pains and privations 
enou<^h in the worlil which are unavoidable, without adding to them a renewal of those deadly 
straggles for power and dominion, which in the 25 years preceding 1815, caused " counties^ 
thousands to mourn' for the inhumanity of civilized man more savage than the tenant of the 

forest 1 

I have not a wish left to see Canada incorporated with this Union. If it obtain a direct re- 
presentation in the British Parliament, on the sagacious plan proposed by the far-seeing 
Franklin, and renewed by Hume in the House of Commons, it may remain connected willi 
Britain for ages. Should that not take place, its annexation to these northern states is an 
event of no remote probability At present, the chances are, that an invasion of Canada from 
this side (although, considering the facility of transportation of men and materials, it might 
prove rather more successlul than it did in 1812), would end in a failure, or its equivalent. 
The clergy generally in Canada are unfavorable to a change — and although in 1837 and 1838, 
many left them to join in the movement, yet I have never since seen one who was thus engag- 
ed ei'^ht years ago, that did not confess his disappointment on witnessing the v.orking of the 
politkral machinery in gear here, and which we had all so much admired. Of the population 
of the colonics tliere undoubtedly is a large majority at this day who are hostile to an annexa- 
tion to litis Union — and there are no scarcity of states on this side the St. Lawrence, quite as 
steadily opposed to an amalgamation with the Canadians. The more I see of the baleful effects 
of southern slavery, in retarding education and marring useful republican legislation, the more 
averse am I to witness more of the free north come under its destructive opeiatitm. 

Those who participated in the Canadian insurrections some years since, were, I think, in 
error — not because there was no good ground for revolt — nor because there was not enough of 
disaffection — no, nor yet on account of the impossibility of success, lor it did seem to be at one 
time within our easy grasp — but because the reasonable probability of a liappy termination 
was less strong than that of prematiu'c failure. Lord Sydenham, with whom I used some- 
times to converse at Whitehall, when in London, did maiiy tyrannical things in Canada, but 
he be'^an to trust the people, w;is experienced and practical, and set up those elective local or 
countv legislatures among them which answer to the boards of supervisors here. He wntoie- 
to his bro'ther in England, " I would willingly give land to settlers, but there is, alas ! none to 
give, except what is rendered valueless by the neighboriiood of those cursed landjobljers who 
cut off all access to it." And again, " I know that as much as I dislike Yankee institutions and 
rule I would not have fought against ihern, wViich thousands of these poor fellows the [familyj 
compact call rebels did, if it w/rc only to keep up such a government as they got." 

The American people, in two u ars, have as.-,uredly got glory enough. If ihey were d&sirous 
to establish the fact that they are brave in battle, whether by land or sea, it is so well known 
as to be undisputed anywhere. But were it otherwise, would tliat be a reason for desiroyiiig 
commerce, scttingthe whole world a Cghting, killing vast numbers and wounding many more, 
demoralizing society, creating mammoth national debts, and embarrassing a whole people for 
an age to come, and all about some barren desert contended for by those who have already land 
enough for twenty times their numbf^r ! 

For many years, in Upper Canada, I gave all my energies to the task of instructirg the peo- 
ple in iho principles of poptUar government, so fur as I kueyv them. To conipiekend the aidui 



CANADA. DKATH OF COL. MOODIE. COL. W. E. MOORE. 289 

ous cnaracter of the course I pursued, the reader would require to have resided in these times, 
in the colony. Many there were who covertly endeavored to bring about a change. I went 
.straight ahead. A residence here has fully satisfied my own mind, that I went too fast and 
too far — that the ideal diflerence is much greater than the reality, and that no one is called 
upon to encom'age bloodshed in 1846, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, in order that Congress 
may have longer sessions and more work, by the extension of svtch legislation as they bestow 
on the ten miles square to the larger area of the two Canadas. 

It has often been said, here in New York, that I was a party to the Short HiJls Invasion — the 
Prescott affair, under Von Shoultz, Birge, &c. — the Windsor or Detroit inroad — and the Lower 
Canada insurrection of 1838. I was not consulted in, nor a party in any way to these enter- 
prises, nor has any one that was concerned ever said .so. Noah, in the Sun, Mes.senger, &c., 
insists that I injured the Canadian cause by cowardice, and perhaps I did. I do not fmd that 
any ■party in Canada have ever said so, however. Sir Richard Bonnycastle, of the Royal En- 
gineers, Toronto, in a book lately issned from the Londoi, press, plainly, and in the most dis- 
tinct terms, charges me with having murdered Colonel Aloodie of the British Army, in cold 
blood, and even gives my alleged reasons for so doing ! Colonel Moodie, accompanied by Capt. 
Stewart of the Royal Nayy (an old officer who was at the battle of Aboukir), and' Lieut. 
Crewe, rode up to the rebel lines, dashed past the fost line of sentinels, and fired a pistol at the 
second, opposite Montgomery's Hotel. Refusing to surrender, he was fired at in return by the 
sentinel, as ordered by the officer on guard, and died of the wound — Crewe and Stewart were 
then made prisoners. Stewart swore to a narrative of the facts, which appeared in the Toronto 
newspapers. About an hour before that, I had left for Toronto, with a guard of four horse- 
men (one of whom Capt. Powell shot dead) — we arrested Capt. Po\vell and Major A. McDon- 
ei!, and while I was on my way back, with McDonell in charge, as he states in his publish- 
ed narrative, a gentleman rode past and told us tha^t Col. M. had been shot or wounded. On 
our arrival at the hotel (Col. Lount being then in command there), I went instantly to see the 
dying man, and he told all present that his own imprudence had caused his death. I never 
saw him before in m.y life ; and as his death was an open, public act, seen by man^', and as I 
was at the time far distant, in charge of McDonell, a more wanton lie was never told, and that 
t'-)0 by a neighbor whom I had never wronged, and who must have knoAvn that the tongue of man 
ne^-er uttered a more wanton or malicious falsehood. T^ie GLueen ^^Tote a letter to the Colo- 
nel's widow, condoling with her as was natural ; but where can Bonnyca-stle find a shadow of 
proof to his London story 1 Certainly not in Upper Canada. 



[No. 314.] Colonel W. E. Moore, of Kentucky, assistant Editor of tlve "Washington 
Globe, to W. L. Mackenzie, 1G2 Nassau st., New York. 

Washington, D. C, Dec. 12, 1838. 

Dear Sir : * * * Should come on, let him have a letter for me, and he will 

fmd a friend with the will, if not the means, of seconding his views. Of course you aix- 
aware that Mr. Papineau is here. * * * There are other parts of your letter I do not like. 
You must know that the only p.\rty in this amnlnj ichich really sympathizes icith the Canadian, 
fatriots is the democratic. Tlie Whigs, as a party, arc opposed to ynn in principle ; v:e are 
with you IN PRINCIPLE, 271 /cdi?(i'-, 2» heart, and soul; but circumstances, call them .selfish, 
.selt-interest, if you please (we call it our first duty to our country), have throion lis into a false 
positio'i, but that only for a time. Much as we admire the man of our choice, placed by us 
at the head of the government, yet hoio did every democratic p-ress in the co-untry receive his pro- 
clamation? Hoxo has it received part of the annual Message, relatim; to Canada? WITH 
DEEP, DEEP MORTIFICATION. At heart there is not a NORTHERN or WES- 
TERN DEMOCRAT, from the summit of the Alleghanies to the bosom of the Father of Waters, 
west, and thence east along the feeders of the St. Lawrence to the Penobscot, who does not 
regret it ; but we repose in the assurance that such documents were called for by the existing 
state of relations between the two countries. Yet that part of the message, as well as the pro- 
clamation, elicited the general praise of the whig press, from Mr. Gales downwards. While 
condemning everj' other portion of the message, this, most of them can laud. I can assure you 
that there is a magazine of burning patriotism now buried in the bosoms of the democracy, 
that wants but a single spark to set it in an active flame. Let the poor Prescott prisoners be 
massacred in cold blood, and it will light up a torch in this country that all the influence and 
power of both governments will be unable to smother or quench. But what would you have 
us do now "? Surely we must not forget our high moral obligations as a government, and we, 
the people, are the government in reality. We are at peace with England ; why should our, 
government go to war with her, or take steps to hm-ry herself blindly into such a catastrophe ? 
It may be tliat our executive may have exhibited too much solicitude to preserve peace ; but 
peace is the natural position of a republic, especially of an extended and diversified one like 
onrA, 0°^'HERE ACQCisiTioN WOULD EE A CURSE, ^iH and gloiT but a poor return for the los'< 
oi blood and destruction of prosperity. It would be difficult to explain myself in a f.*w hurried 
A 



290 CORRESPONDENCE OF DEMOCRATS AND WHIGS. 

lines, but the democratic party in this countr}- stand in this position ; tlieir prayers, their sijm- 
pathics, their purses, if they xcere rich enough {their personal services too, which would not be 
withheld on a reasonable prospect of success), are for the patriots, and yet they will sustain 
their government in a firm, dignified, but not truckling adherence to neutral obligations. We 
have NOTHING to gain by a war with Great Britain, however successful it might terminate, 
and this is not the age for republics entering a contest for the establishment of abstract, 
though correct, principles elsewhere. We of the democratic party throughout the Union, 
however, are with you as citizens, and shall continue to be so. The federalists will oppose 
you, in public and in secret, by sneering and by slander, in a word, by every trick, till they 
see the bones of ihe last victim bleached on the plain, and they will blast his memory after- 
wards. Excuse these hasty thoughts. I have written with corresponding candor to your 
awn ; but I have felt that your letter did my party injustice. Happily, it will not be long ere 
your convictions will assent to all I say ; for, depend upon it, to the democracy alone can yon 
look for support. I shall be j^lad to hear from you. Your friend, W. E. MOORE. 

Kdm, Paynter, and Jngcrs'i's Intervicio with Van Buren abmtt Mackenzie's Imprisonvient. 
[No. 315.] To Messrs. William Gilmore and Robert Christy, Secretaries of the Demo- 
cratic Union Association, Philadelphia. Washington, December 28th, 1839. Gentlemen : — 
On behalf of a resolution of the Democratic Union Association, for Messrs. Paynter, Ingersol 
and myself to call upon the President of the United States and request his attention to a me- 
morial relative to the pardon of William Lyon Mackenzie, it becomes my duty to say that Ave 
have fully discharged the desire therein expressed. The President, who is at all times anxious 
to gratify the desires of any portion of the people, regrets exceedingly, that in the present junc- 
ture of pending negotiations with Great Britain, it would be improper to interfere with the ac- 
tion of our courts of justice, and therefore at present could not decisively move in compliance 
with yoiu^ wishes. Every possible means have been exerted to make the confinement of Mr. 
Mackenzie a nominal one,: and to gratify his every wish, save his release. My o"mi private 
views are, that if the friends of Mr. Mackenzie would appeal to the magnanimity of the pre- 
sent representative of the British provinces in North America, by his request, he would be re- 
leased, and relieve the question from the embarrassment in which it seems involved. 

»GEORGE M. KEIM. 

[No. 316.] George Dawson, Editor of the Rochester Democrat, to W. L. Mackenzie, care of 
Dr. Cyrenius Chapin, Buffalo. 

Rochester, Dec. 14, 1837. Dear Sir : — Allow me, as one who admires the sublime stand 
yourself and your associates have taken against tyranny, to tender you my sympathy. I have 
watched with intense anxiety the progress of events in Canada, and the intelligence of your 
revolt was received with irrepressible satisfaction. Before open hostilities were avowed in 
the Upper Province, that circumstances might hasten such hostilities, was my daily prayer. I 
knew that she deserved to be free, and belie^-ed that if she resolved upon freedom, it could be 
achieved. Mv acquaintance with you in my boyhood, and the tales of persecutions that have 
followed you since that period, have been listened to and treasured up. I knew your wrongs, 
and eamestl-,- prayed for their redress. I looked to you as a leader, and from my knowledge 
of your chai icter, expected that you Avould, sooner or later, assume a position at once sublime 
and noble. Nor have my expectations failed. I have seen your arm raised to strike the first 
olow for Li'' rty. Would to God that its descent had not, to some extent, been foiled! Bin I 
still look uji'-in the Sun of the Canadas as but emerging from the morrdng clouds. The day 
cannot be tar distant when it shall .shine resplendently in the ascendant. 

In writing to you, I have been requested by .several of our citizens to invite you to visit this 
city, if yo I could do so with safety, and consistently with your arrangements. We are to 
have a m 'ting on Saturday evening, as you will see by my paper, which I send you ; and it 
would aiurd me much pleasure to provide you with the hospitalities of mv house. Please 
write me. Yours sincerely, GEORGE DAWSON. 

• General Keim told me himself that the above was a true copy of his private letter to the Association. His 
cxtraordiimry advice, or hint, must have been Riven in cnnseqnence of what Van Buren had said to the three 
Philadelphia cimiiressMien. I was advised to appeal to I^uid Syiloiihani or Sir fJeorge Arihur'.s ningnaniinity, 
in Canada ; and the president of the tJnited States wimlil lie iiuitc ready to pardon in New York, if it met the 
views of the knif;ht or baron that Miiyht be (loverning for the time at Toronto 1 This, of ciuirse, I did not choose 
lo stoop to do, and theret'ore had to sillier other live months' imprisonment — but the very day the Baltimore 
Convention met, Van Huren was made to see that my confinement had been a very preat political blunder, and 
I was instantly released, aUhouph the following note shows that he had not intended to take such a course. 

NoTK.— John Norvell, Senator, U. S., to Morgan L. Oape, Michigan. — Wasiiinoton, Jan. 3, 1840. — Dear Sir : 
In reply to your letter in relation to the case of William L. Mackenzie, I am only enabled to say to you, that 
upon receiving the petition* for his panlon, as I am informed, they were sent to the fUistrict Judge and the Dis- 
trict Attorney of Western New York, and that their report on the subject was such as to prevent the exercise 
by the President of the power of pardon on the occasion. JOHN KORVELL. 

t Smith Thompson and N. S. Uenton. 

I False, altoijetUer false.— W. L. >t 



R. M. JOHNSON. folk's FRIENDSHIP FOR VAN BUREN. 291 

[No. 317.] Col. R. M. Johnson, "Vice President U. S., to John Fegan, Esq., Philadelphia. 

City of Washington, llth May, 1840. My dear Sir: — Your highly esteemed favor has 
been received, respecting the confinement of Mr. Mackenzie as prisoner, &c., in the jail at 
Rochester. I feel as deeply as man can feel the misfortune of that patriotic man. I consider 
his misfortune and his suflering very much like the hard fate and cruel destiny of many un- 
successful patriots before our time ; and although the la\vs of nations and the la\vs of the land 
may have condemned him and legally consigned him to prison, I think that the demand of jus- 
tice is satisfied, and I should not hesitate, with my views of the suljject, to liberate, if I had the 
power ; and I presume that I shall do, and have done, all I can to etfect this object. I am con- 
fident, however, that the President [Mr. Van Buren] has acted from his conviction of a sacred 
duty to do as he has done ; but I hope that he may feel himself justihed, without injury to the 
diplomatic relations of the country, in exercising the power of pardon in this case. In my 
delicate position, having no power, and exercising only that reasonable influence which my 
situation gives me, I do not wish to take any prominent agency in this matter, as it would not 
do good, and might do harm ; but at this place, as far as it is coiTect and proper, I will do what 
I can to promote the object in view. Respectfully, Rh. M. JOHNSON. 



AN ACCOUNT 



BALTIMORE CONVENTION. 
VAN BURET'S DEFEAT, 

AND THE 

NOMINATION OF POLK AND DALLAS. 



" As bees on flowers alighting, cease their hum, 
Settling on places, democrats grow dumb." 

PoWs Friendship far Van Buren, — Heiss and the Union. — The Globe on Polk. — Ritchie, Heiss, 
Polk, and Cass. — Significant Votes. — Delegates rercarded. — Marctfs Position and Prospects. 
— The Syraoise Nominations. — How Cass losi the Game. — Croswell and DickensoiVs Views. — 
Butlefs NaskviUe Journey. — Van Buren, Threats in the Democratic Review. — Walker wheels 
Butter round to Texas, condemns Van Buren, and iwminates Wright ! — Flagg set aside. — 
Marcyh Tact. — Bancroft on both sides. — The Tkoo-third Rule. — Buileron Hard Cider. — Van 
Buren for Polk, Dallas, and Texas. — Cass and the CMrokees. — Col. Yoking enraged. — He 
heads the Texas Ticket. — O'SulUvan on Human Cattle (not Polk's Negroes). — George Mifflin 
Dallas. — Old Dallas and his Bank.— His Son a U. S. B., V. B. Man.— Dallas and Wilkins 
on the Public Lands. — Mileage of Senators, 

Are there those who believe Polk friendly to Van Buren 1 Let me undeceive them. When 
Polk and Ritchie and "Walker saw and read the .secret coiTcspondence of Hoj^ which I .sent on 
to Washington, in May, and the discovery, and anticipated publication of which so delighted 
them, would they one and all, as also those of their friends who got copies, had they been 
friendly, have kept the secret from the Van Burens, Flagg, Butler, Wright, and Dix, and allowed 
the guilty to be startled by the sudden apparition of my first pamphlet in September last 1 Who 
can believe it 1 Polk and Jackson's paper, the Nashville Union, kept the name of Van Buren 



292 THE BALTIMORE CONVEXTION OF 1344. 

at the head of its columns as the candidate of the party for Baltimore, while it threatened any 
Tennessean who would vote for him there. Hearken to Hogau and Hciss ! g^ '• We do 
" not believe Mr. Van B men will receive one vote from the Tennes.seau delegatiim. If he 
'•due-s, that delegate who votes knowingly again.st the wishes of his con.^lituents, will be 
'• marked hereafter, as i;^a man unworthy of their confidence." Why did they keep up Van 
Buren's name over such remarks as these 1 The Texas letter was seized on as a pretext to get 
rid of a man whom certain leaders no longer wanted. Had Polk and Van Buren been on the 
very best of terms, although the latter yielded to the former, Avould language like the Ibllowing. 
have found its way into the olUcial journal, (Blair's Globe,) on the 19th of Jan. 18141 

" I care not how lionorable a man may be, if he is a coward he cannot maintain his honor; 
and hence it is such a Juan is disqualified for the office of V. President. Now, sir. Col. King 
has never been insulted dayaUcrdav; and, above all, he was never caught roughly by the 
arm [by Wise] when escaping from tlie Capitol, pulled round and told that he was the ' con- 
temptible tool of a petty tyrant !' I pledge my head, if he is ever .so treated, he willre.sent the 
insult in tlie proper waj'. Will ' A Tennessee Democrat' do the same in regard to Gov. 
Polk ? What are the facts in regard to Gov. Polk 1 He has been twice repudiated in his 
own State by large majorities — defeated by an inexperienced politician ; and it is not pre- 
tended that his name would add one particle of strength to the ticket in any State of this 
TJuion." 

There was a clear understanding between Ritchie at Richmond, and Heiss at Nashville, to 
go for Cass if Van Buren could be set aside, and for Polk in preference to either. This was 
independent of Texas. Ritchie had made up his mind to have the printing of Congi-ess. He 
was connected with B. Greene, who had a very deep interest in Texan scrip and lands. He lived 
in a state that raised men and women for sale and traflrc, into perpetual bondage, as if they 
were cattle, through the home slave trade. If Van Buren obtained power, Blair would have 
his interest ; the north, with its Bryants, Sedgwicks, abolitioni.sts, &:c., would compel V. B. to 
throw cold water on annexation, or oust him ; and Virginia went for the detestable gains of 
her human shambles. Moreover, Van Buren's chance was very doubtful. That had been 
proved in 1840. In the summer and fall of 1843, the Richmond Enquirer, in the form of let- 
ters to the editor, had said much in favor of Cass, and the Nashville Union, [Hogan and 
Heiss] copied liberally, " by request." Tlie spring elections of Connecticut and Virginia 
went agaimt Van Buren ; Tyler and Calhoun pushed on annexation, and coaxed Ritchie. 
Tlie Richmond Enquirer and Calhoun's Charleston organ became more and more harmoniou.'; 
and united ; and on the month of the Convention, Ritchie gravelj' rebuked Blair for censuring 
Calhoun, and told his friends that the Calhoun party were with them, and that they had the 
.same view.s. Ritchie said, that Clay was "an electioneering demagogue, and would prove an 
arrant dictator," and that Texas miist be had now, and not waited for 70 years. Before tlie 
Convention met, Hei.ss's paper, the Nashville Union, plainly foretold that Polk would be 
"hosLjn there, not as Vice President, but as President, although no public journal or meeting 
In the Republic had named him for the latter office. When the Convention met, Ritchie's 
.son, William F., was elected its principal secretary, and Virginia and Tennessee went cor- 
dially together lor the rule that two-thirds of its votes would be required to secure a nomina- 
tion, tlius defeating Van Buren's nomination at the first ballot. Virginia [Ritchie], Tennessee 
[Polk], Mississippi [Walker] and Georgia, went together steadily during the fu\st seven bal- 
lots, for Cass, not giving Van Buren a single vote. On the 8th ballot, Tennessee left Cass for 
Polk, and in the middle of the 9th, the N. Y. delegation gave way, the farce closed, and the 
vole for Polk was unanimous ! The result was, that although Jackson was warmly attached 
to Blair he had to make way for Polk's friends — and the printing of Congre.'^s, which a com- 
pany of mechanics ofiered to" do, as well as Ritchie does it, and §30,000 a year cheaper, was 
the fit reward of the intrigues of the Nashville Union, and his new partner of the Richmond 
Enimirer. Was there a bargain 1 Is it even probable that Jackson really desired the election* 
of Van Buren 1 Polk knew that Ritchie was an original enemy of Jackson's claim.s, but he 
aKo knew his influence in Virginia. He .seems to have agreed with the principal, Ritchie, 
and tlie agent, Virginia, followed of course. If no one bargained for a reward, it is marvel- 
lous how they ail got it. Polk had the White Hou.se; Ritchie and Hei.'^s, the printing; 
Woodbury, the Bench ; Cave Johnson, the Po.st-ofiice; Bancroft, the Navv; Marey, the War 
office; Gillet, [anti-Cass] ilie Registership ; Butler, his old berth; Mason "(from Tyler's cabi- 
net), the Attorney Generalship. Tyler gave his influent^e, as president of the U. S.and Texa.'^ 
wa-H annexed. The Van Buren section wanted Coddington for Collector here ; but the Marcy 
STtion, with the aid of Hoyl's letters, (about the opportune appearance of which there is yet a 
.v'crel untold.) put in Lawrence. The scheming at Baltimore, in the Convention, began witii 
I rayer and praise ; after which the clergyman, witii very good ta.ste, read to them the 101st 
pvilni, " //■■ IhutnuirkctJi dcccU shaU not dwell within viv liov$e : he that tcUeth iiis shall v-ot tain/ 
in my si:;ht." 

I would advise stime active and honest editor to take a list of the Convention and compare 
it with Polk and Walker's appoiiilmenLs, with the names of the director.-; of the pet banks, 



marcy's intrigues, a peep behind the curtain. 293 

with the N. Y. Custom House, beginning with Peter Crawford, and with Oliver Lee & Co. 
pet banlcers!, Buffalo, and if he does not obtain presumptive proof of a base and mercenary 
bargain to elect James K. Polk, and of the fulfilment of its personal and pecuniary condi- 
tions, too, I shall be most agreeably mistaken. 

Those who have known William L. Marcy long and well, assure me, and I believe it, 
that he is an adroit, managing man— more so, perhaps, than Van Bm-en ; cautious, but un- 
der no conti-ol of principle. In the War Department, Marcy expects to make a fortune (for 
somebody), out of the vast contracts and patronage in his gift. He went into the scheme of 
Canadian annexation— advised his friends on the frontier— was privy to his wile's brother's 
junction with us at Navy Island — on the very best terms with certain influential Canadians 
— came to Bufialo during the troubles in January, 1838, and spoke strongly in favor of the go- 
ahead policy to certain friends of the Canadians. Walworth and Croswell, and Porter, (then 
Register), took the same view. When Van Buren saw that the affair was a failure, or likely 
so to be, he advised Marcy, Croswell, &c., to wheel about, and they did so. The British par- 
liamentary papers show that Marcy hired emissaries, and was really active in procuring infor- 
mation for the Canadian authorities, and the Journal of Commerce rightly said, Jan. 10, 1838, 
'' We have the best authority for stating, that there is a good understanding in regard to the 
Canada troubles, between the cabinet at Washington and the British minister," Fox. In his 
present position, in case of war, there Avould be a suspension of cash payments, the banks 
would lend their worthless paper to the government, and live in clover — the war bm-eau would 
be the leading department of the administration— the influence of its head would be immense; 
and he might look with good hope to the reversion of Polk's chair, although I am told he flatters 
Walker and Polk, by telling them that war would assuredly secure it either to the one or the 
other. The Sub-Treasury, if worked again, Hoijt fashion, would be a real gold mine. 

On the 5th of September, 1843, a .state Convention met at Syracuse ,W. L. Marcy, president 
—79 for Marcy, 40 for Young. The plan was, to name at once, 34 delegates, to represent the 
State at Baltimore in the Presidential convention, and it was Marcy's wish to have a majority 
of them composed of politicians Avhom he could control, so as to appear to suj^port Van Buren, 
but in reality to go for the candidate who would pay best— say for Cass; or lor Polk, if Cass 
proved unavailable. Failing to get that majority, Marcy was dropt as one of the State dele- 
gates, and Young taken. A committee to choose delegates was appointed, and the choice of a 
delegate for each congressional district left to the member of that committee for that district. 
Oliver Lee, the Buffalo [Polk pet] banker, Erastus Corning, Daniel S. Dickinson, J. W. Brown, 
Henry K. Smith, John C. Wright, Nathan S. Roberts of the canals, Thomas B. Mitchell, and 
John "Stryker, were, I believe, strong Marcy delegates ; but when the 3G assembled at Baltimore, 
B. F. Butler and Samuel Young headed the Van Buren section, and they were the most nume- 
rous ; that cause alone is stated to have prevented Marcy and his friends from giving the vote of 
New York to Cass on the 7th ballot, which, with the influence it would have carried, would have 
secured to Ca.ss the nomination. On the eighth ballot, CTCorgia, Tennessee, the Bancroft .sec- 
tion of the Massachusetts delegation, Woodbury's interest (New Hampshire), Walker's folks 
(Mississippi), and two from IPennsylvania (personal friends of Buchanan) went for Polk— on 
the 9th, all parties took him up ; and Calhoun's men, Pickens and Elmore, who were in the 
secret, played their parts in the drama, going heartily (not a doubt of it) for "Polk and Texas, 
Texan scrip, and down with liberty and the ways of seventy-six." 

The New York delegation, so far as the Croswell, Marcy, and Dickinson section were con- 
cerned, are generally believed to have desired to throw Van Buren overboard, and to have 
secretly canvassed against him, and told other members of the Convention, that so much could 
he said to his discredit, that if nominated, all would be a failure, and New York State lost; 
which was probably true. Why did Butler and the majority, on the opposite side, prevent the 
nomination of Cass from Michigan, and call forward Polk, whom his editor, H:eiss, knew and 
had already announced as the nominee, though he was 700 miles distant ■? In May, 1844, Dr. 
Beekman, banker, Kinderhook, a friend of Van Buren, and now a senator, was on a visit to 
Albany ; and he reported on his return, that Marcy, Dickinson, and Croswell \vere undermin- 
ing him and deserting his camp. Van Buren wrote to Butler itrmiedintely, and the latter set 
oft' on his well known mission to Nashville, armed with instructions to tickle Jackson's vanity, 
by asking him to come forward a third time as a candidate, and thus preserve the party 
from ruin. This he well knew that Jackson would not do ; but the Boston Post, as instructed, 
declared that his health, just then, had not been so robust for years ; and in the Convention, 
May 28th, a member proposed him, but it did not take. Van Buren's retreat could not be thus 
<X)vered. At Nashville, a secret arrangement was made, that if Van Buren could not l>e 
nominated, Polk should be, in preference to Cass. Is this the reason why Butler was appoint- 
ed to a S20,000 office here, by Polk, the moment he had the power 1 What is the tenure by 
which he now holds it 1 Butler, in convention, wanted to take the lead in proposing Polk, 
when the time had come to drop Van Buren, but Hubbard was before him ; and the man 
whom Jones, a whig, had defeated in Tennessee, at the then next previous election lor go- 
vernor, by a plurality of 3,633 out of 112,781 votes, thus became President of the Union, with- 



294 BUTLER AND CO. BULLY ' THE SOUTH AND TRADE OFf' THE NORTH. 

out even a township nomination, and in the teeth of instructions by 16 state conventions to 
support another. Van Buren never got over 12 votes from the whole of the slave states. In- 
■rigiie had been his element, and his own pupils now outshone their master. 

The Democratic Review tor June looked (as a last resource) to a junction of the free north 
and west, and the abjuration of the slaveholders, if no bargain could be made with them. The 
reader will at once see that Butler, and not the Regent (O'Sullivan), must have been thcMTiter 
ol' the following paragraphs, which are by authority : 

" It is possible, ver}' possible, that he [Van Buren] may not be nominated — that many of hi.s 
" owTi personal friends within its (the Baltimore Convention's) members, not loving Caesar less 
" but Rome more, may be the first to cast a reluctant and sorrowful vote against his name. If 
'• the Convention should come to the conclusion, on a broad survey of the vjhole ground, that 
" the influence of this new question [Texas] is really and truly such as to destroy or endanger 
'■ the hope of his election — that any other candidate, worthily fulfilling the condition of being 
" a true and trusty democrat, can bring more favorable auspices into the contest with the com- 
" mon foe — be it so. Though we have never BEroiiE assumed the right to speak; for Mr. 
" Van Buren, yet on this occasion and this point we do not hesitate to a.ssert, that he 
" will himself, in that event, be found foremost among the first, and truest among the true, in 
" support of the decision of the Convention." 

The writer next specially addresses the slave states, THE SOUTH, telling them the conse- 
quences that would follow their deviation from the decision of the party, when delivered at 
Baltimore. These are his words : 

1^ " Why, there will be a burst of indignation from the NORTH for which you are little 
l;;^ prepared. They will abjure you and your capricious, if not treacherous alliance, and 
^^ leave you to sustain yourselves by yourselves, against all the forms of foreign attack, 
|;5= which will then be a thousand fold multiplied and embittered. No son of yours need 
^^ then indulge a vain aspiration for that high honor for wdiich the votes of Northern Demo- 
gj" cracy are threefold more necessary than tho.se of Southern Chivalry. The great free 
i:^ North and the great free West will then take the matter of President-making into their 
f:^ own steadier and trustier hands." 
I On the 23d of April, 1844, in the correspondence of the N. Y. Evening Post, I find it re- 
' marked, that " If the cause of our disasters, as many of our best and most constant adv'ocates 
of republicanism seem to think, is the want of f^^a new name at the head of our ranks,.^ 
■we are willing, as individuals, to abandon our fir.st choice, and to rally with equal ardor to the 
standard of Cass, Johnson, or anybody else." 

Judge Douglass of Illinois has recently proclaimed the important fact, that the Texas and 
Oregon resolution adopted at Baltimore, was drawn up by R. J. Walker, and offered to the 
Convention by his brother adventurer, Benjamin F. Butler, as one of their claptraps for 
President making. Van Buren opposed to Texas, and his man, Butler, taking the lead for it ! 
The Rescjlution is in these words : 

" Resolved, That our title to the whole of the territory of Oregon is clear and unquestionable ; 
that no portion of the same ought to be ceded to England or any other power ; and that the 
reoccupation of Oregon, and the re-annexation of Texas, at the earliest practical period, are 
great American measures, which this Convention recommends to the cordial support of the 
democracy of the Union." 

Looking at the corrupt and mercenary character of Butter, we ask the reader if his position 
as district attorney here, is not presumptive evidence that when he thus shifted round to become 
Walker's catspaw, there was an understanding, the conditicjns of which Polk hastened to fulfil 1 
Walker was Van Buren's most determined enemy at Baltimore; Butler his |)rofcssedly 
warmest friend. He went to Baltimore with Young, to o])pose annexation. Why did he 
there become Polk's organ for denoimcing as traitors all who would not consent to it 1 
Walker vehemently denounced Van Buren because he durst not go for annexation. Why did 
he propose to the Convention that Silas Wright, who professed the very same creed as Van 
Buren, and iiad voted against annexation in the senate, should be the candid;ite for Vice 
President! and why did the Icnaves, who had voted down Van Buren on that .score, vote up 
Wright at Walker's nod 1 Was there any principle there 1 Butler's resolution on Texas, as 
adopted, implied a censure on Benton, Wright, and Van Buren, for not going straight with 
tlic i)arly 7 

'1 he understanding, when Polk left Nasliville, was, that Flagg, our Comptroller, should be 
put at tlie head of the lii'aMiry; but Walker and others influenced him so that he decided 
that the memlx.T of the cabinet for N. Y. shouUI be Marcv, for the department of war. 
Marcy, I am well int(ji-med, is much more practical than Bancroft, wlu)m he manages, and 
thus controls in a large degree, the navy. He may out-general Van Buren yet, although it is 
but a lottery. He was re-elected governor of this .state in Nov., 183G, with nearly 3,000 
majority. In tlie winter of 1H37, the i)arty were omnipotent. Nine months alter they were 



GEORGE BANCROFT. VAN BUREN FOR POLK AND DALLAS. 295 

entirely routed. E. Larned, Marcy's relative, is president of one of the copper companies on 
Lake Superior. They are all in Marcy's department. He also locates the lands. S. C. 
Frey, a brother-in-law of Mr. Calhoun, a late M. C. from Mass. wrote me last Nov., that 
when the insurrection broke out in Canada, in 1837, Mr. Wills, senator from St. La\vi'ence 
county, was requested to see Gov. Marcy on the subject ; that he did so, and immediate!}' 

wrote to Morristown to , " Tell your Canadian friends that they may rest assured 

that Gov. Marcy will interfere no farther than the laws of the country compel him, and that 
they have his best wishes for their success." " With the example of neutrality law, as admin- 
istered in the case of Texas, and Jaclcson's unmeaning proclamations [Frey ^\Tites me] we 
interfered ; but soon found that our rulers were far more anxious to extend the area of slavery 
than that of freedom ; and that our laws had one aspect and operation on the banks of tlie St. 
Lawrence, and quite another on the borders cf slave-freeing Mexico." When the time 
comes, Mr. Marcy and his friends will have facts that may be as inconvenient to hear, as if 
given now. 

George Bancroft, like Marcy, has " principle in proportion to his interest." A northern 
man, he set up for Congress in 1834, with an address to suit the meridian of Massachusetts, 
of which a sample follows : 

" Slaves are capital ; the slaveholder is a capitalist. Free labor will be the iir.st to demand 
the abolition of slavery ; capital will be the la.st to concede it. We would not interfere with 
the domestic regulations of New Orleans or Algiers, but we may demand the instant abolition 
of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and should assist free labor to recover its rights 
in the capital of the country. * * * * GEORGE BANCROFT." 

Bancroft was formerly a schoolmaster, his associate being Joseph G. Cogswell of N. Y., he 
was originally much opposed to Jackson, but conformed, as he diet at Baltimore, and now does 
in the Polk cabinet. He is a sensible speaker, but no orator ; and stuck to Van Buren till 
matters were otherwise arranged. His best performance is his history. In his eulogy on Old 
Hickory, delivered at Washington, he offered a specimen of anti-climax, thus : 

" And Jackson returned to his own fields and his own pursuits, to cherish his own planta- 
tion ; to care for his servants ; to look after his stcd." 

Only five entire states, Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, New York, and Missouri, voted 
against the two-third rule. It was evident that Van Buren was believed to be odious among 
the people, everywhere ; yet, Jiad Ritchie said the word, Van Buren would have had the 
nomination, such is the power of leaders to combine for the spoils, in the way that will pro- 
mote their interest. Walker was strong against Van Buren ; and Rantoul, whom Tyler 
wanted to make secretary of the treasury, spoke against Butler, and for the twc-thirds. Mar- 
cy said little, but set others forward. Van Buren got 146 votes at first, and went do\vn gradu- 
ally to 99. M'Nulty, the ex-clerk of Congress, was strong for Van Buren. Frazer of Pa., 
who was in Buchanan's confidence, canvassed and made speeches for Polk ; and Cave John- 
son announced for Blair and Rives that they would go for the nominee, be he who he might. 
Senator Allen, of Ohio, S. Medary, B. Tappan, Jacob Brinkerhoff, and Dr. Alex. Duncan, 
were for V. B. Senators Hannegan [the son of an Irish emigrant], and Haywood, were for 
Cass. In reply to Walker, Butler .said " he was very sorry, indeed, to find his friends, Messrs. 
Walker, of Mississippi, and Saunders, of N. Carolina, referring to the precedent of 1840 ; the 
log-cabin, hard cider, coon hunting precedent of 1840. He could stamp them under his feet 
(he was understood to say, stamping violently on the floor as he -spoke)." Walker rejoined 
that Butler's was the finest specimen of tall vaulting he had seen of a long time. Walker, in 
1840, was a Van Buren delegate to Baltimore. 

I was present at a large meeting in the Park, N. Y., on June 4th, to respond to the nomina- 
tion of Polk and Dallas, and heard a letter from Van Buren read, which had been addressed 
to Gansv. Melville and others, from Lindenwald, June 3, 1844 : 

HV" I have known Messrs. Polk and Dallas long and intimately. I have had frequent 
'^^ opportunities for personal observation of their conduct in the discharge of high and respon- 
l:^ sible public duties. The latter has by my appointment represented the country abroad 
i;;^ with credit and usefulness ; they are both gentlemen possessed of high character ; of un- 
§3= questioned and unquestionable patriotism and integrity ; able to discharge the duties of the 
^^ stations for which they have been respectively nominated, \\ith advantage to the countr)', 
^Jf and honor to themselves. Concurring with them in the main, in the political principles 
^^hY which their public lives have been hitherto distinguished, 1 am sincerel}- desirous for 
g^ their success." 

At a similar meeting held inFaneuil Hall, Boston, Mr. Bancroft said : that man who would 
agree to a mean submission to England, as to Oregon, let him turn aside and not vote 
for Polk — that as to Texas, Polk would not be found a lackey, taking his cue from St. 
James's; that there would be no war with Mexico; and that the convention " looked with one heart 
to Young Hickory of Tennes.see. Startling Avas the effect v^hen the delegation from Maine an- 
nounced its vote for James K. Polk ! Cheering, most cheering followed the plumper from 



296 CASS AND THE INDIANS — COL. YOUNG. o'sULLIVAN. 

New Hampshire. And then, ere the final result was announced, came the unanimous vote 
ofAIassachu.setts, and in succession, tlie unanimous vote of every state." General Cas.s's suc- 
cess in Geori^ia and Alabama is accounted for by a reference to his efforts to hara.s.s the poor 
Indians. Half the Globe of March 31, 1834, is filled Avith his strictures on the Supreme Court 
for its honest decision of the Georgia question. He concludes, " First, that civilized com- 
munities have a right to take pos.session of a country, inhabited by barbarous tribes, to as- 
sume jm-isdiction over them, and to ' combine within narrow limits,' or, in other words, to ap- 
propriate to their own use, such portion of the Territory, as thev tliink proper. Second, that 
in the exercise of this right, such communities are the j ud'ges of the extent of jurisdiction to be as- 
sumed, and of Territory to be acquired." He then argues, that this powej- of judging re.sts with 
'ite States, tiie legislatures of which may subject Indians, who have not yielded' up their sove- 
.-eignty, to what laws they plea.se. As Van Buren was of Jack.son's opinion, and as Jackson, 
Butler, Woodbury, and all the cabinet were of one mind (for so saith Cass), the removal of the 
Cherokees, and the bloodhounds set upon the Seminolcs was surely glory enough ! The In- 
dians were driven westward, just a hundred 3-ears from tlie time when Jol'm Wesley had land- 
•■d at Savannah, a missionary of Christ to convert them. That teacher of teachers got a lesson 
there. A grand jury of the colonists indicted him as a Jaw-breaker, and the magistrates pro- 
nounced Ids departure a flight from justice ! Ninety years after, and Avith the express per- 
mission of the President of the United States, Samuel A. Worcester went to preach to these 
Indians, was arrested for so doing, ordered for four years to the penitentiary of Georgia, and 
only released Avhen the Supreme Court of the Union had, through Mr. Justice McLean's excel- 
lent and logical argument and decision, pronounced a barbarous law ajid the action thereon, 
null and void. 

Colonel Young, at Baltimore, was true to Van Buren, and opposed the canvass for Polk 
as long as he could. A letter from a friend at the Convention, to his friend here, says, " Ccl. 
" Young is quite in a rage, and even hints that the friends of the other candidates have con- 
" spired to defraud V. B. Every delegate from Pennsylvania was pledged under hand and 
".seal to vote tor V. B., but .several of the most active of them visited Buchanan previously, 
'•at Wa.shiiigton, who told them to support a motion tliat would be made I'ora two-third rule, 
" and after tliat do as they pleased. Twelve out of five-and-twentv did so, and when V. B.'s 
" day had gone pa.st, arrangements were made to bring forward the'Texan candidate. Young 
"declares that Cass, Calhoun, Woodburv, Walker, and even Johnson, are among the con- 
" spirators; and that the democratic platform, of fidelity toinstrugtions, is knocked from under 
II our feet, the party cleft in twain, and Texas and its abominations, tied round our necks like 
"a millstone. Texas is to be acquired by propagaudism and incorporation, the principles 




" countries to exchange one set of masters for another— the imperial decree went forth, and 
" liberty and annexation, of the true Texan stamp, went hand in hand. Where are an- 
" nexing principles to terminate 1 At Cape Horn ! At the north pole'? Shall we annex 
'• Cuba, St. Domingo, Jamaica, the whole West Indies, en passant, with .slavery as a sort of 
" .shade or veil to liberty's brightness, and all to uphold our ' peculiar institutions V If we try 
"I lear that the example of France will keep good throughout." Young's passion cooled! 
He headed the electoral ticket which gave the votes of N. Y. to Polk and Dallas, and they 
owe to New York not only their nomination, but also their election ; nor could VanBuren in 
183b, have been elected without New York. He richly deserved his fate in 1840 and '44. 

Van Buren s Iriend, O'Sullivan, in the party journal here, the Democratic Review, let the 
cat out of the bag, and confessed tliat the leaders considered public virtue |^ all a humbug 

I quote the number for April, 1843 : " Since the election of 1840, we have prettv much ceased 
__ to speak of, or confide in, the ' intelligence of the people.' . . . We confess we could 

hardly forbear exclaiming in vexation and contempt, ' well, afler all, nature will out ; the 
poor devils, it we but let them alone, will viake cattle of themselves, and why should we 

II waste our tiuie and substance in trying to hinder them from making themselves cattle ?' 
^ . . . If we wish to .secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of freedom and 

gofjd govern iijeiit, avc mu.st procure .stronger guarantees than popular suffrage and popular 
II virtue and intelligence . . . Suffrage rests for its basis, as a guarantee of freedoiu and 

good governinent, on the a.ssumed intelligence and virtue of the people. Now this may be 
■ very beautiful in theory, but when we cDine to practice, this virtue and intelligence of the 
• p<?ople is ,//^ a A,nuJj„,:r." When the election of Polk and Dallas had put oiir slanderers into 
[x.wer again, their /ieriew wheeled rfiund, and hoisted up the millions from their place with the 
caille to the old perfectioiial standard of lS-<i9. 

A brief sketch cf the life of George Milllin Dallas of Philadelphia would induce many 
reiulerstoamcludelike me, that what is eallcd democracy, the democratic party, is, so far 
a» mo6i of the leaders or chiefs are concerned, an agreement to hunt together after public 



ALEXANDER J. AND GEORGE M. DALLAS. -^«^' 

to Russia, iA 1837, and the selection of the leaders at BaUnnore, in 1814 lor Vic. 1 esiden^ ot 
the TT S with the crv of eternal hostility to a National Bank ! II 1 cannot put sucn men lu 
te, I crnLTdSe express for their mean conduct that contempt which a true repcbhcan 

'"Geor°4 m' Dallas was bom on the lOth of July, 1792, at Philadelphia-is the eldest son of 
AlSaS^r James Dallas, a lawyer of Scotch extraction or b-th -^ came U. Ame-c^ in 
178S became Secretary of the U. S. Treasury last war, died m Jan. 181 /, and is ppo'^en «i '^y 
Col Duanras artful ambitious, one of the worst of the public men ot that age. While at 
S'h^aTof the Treastiry, Oct. 17, I8l4 he thus describes the effect ot the pet bank system 
which, equally aware of its viciousness, his son George and M. \ an Buien muted in i»J<J,.to 
re-establish. ^ .v. . •. 

>.The nnUtiplication of banks in the several states has so inc^^^^^^ li^^eS lls^ate^ith'^Sn^cetlhe 
■■ would be clifficuU to calculate its ^"io^"'V\Hrhlnlt reven this P^^^^^^^^ is *" ^ g^eat measure lost, 

•• capital on which it has been issued. But the }>,''"; 'l^l^'^^X^^'m^^^^^^^ chain of accommodation, 

"as the suspension of payments in specie at most of t.hebank^^^^^^ ^.^^^^, .^ ^_^^ ^^^^^ .^^^^ 

•• that previously e.xtended the credit and 'he J^ "''^''"" "L^^^^^^ exists at this tim-, no adequate 

•• every state in the Union. It may in general ^« ^f ""?;'• /^"^'"^^ transactions of private life are 

::r^'j;L'n"f •TntrheS'Vp^i'a^lo';;^ ^convenience. It is impossible 

-* that such a state of things should be long endured." ,„„j 

With the above official statement, addressed to J. W. Eppes, chairman ot the JVa^s and 

be at stated P« "'^tVl'^'/.^^,^; .'J^.V-^f^ the United States government 30 millions of dollars at 

made paper, W"™ " '=^V 5k?irtSe''asThe Ciiaoms revinues, which even a Jesse 
SKoXo^tre ttw";fmUHon^M^».»^ inwar«„>.s. I meMion these 

S;rrt^Wjhep,„s^ro».^awarn 

SCiS agliis. the veto and thauhe bm was co^^^^^^^^^ 



298 DALLAS, WILKINS, THE MILEAGE, AND THOMAS RITCHIE. 

Ike south, and failed. It obtained the state stocks of Michigan and Indiana, and pledged them 
ill London for more than they were worth. " The United States Bank, by a suspension of 
specie payments, had forl'eited its charter. Its effects were about to pass into the hands of Re- 
ceivers, when a Van Buren Governor [Porter] and Senate interposed, and not only sav-ed its 
lile and legalized a protracted suspension, but allowed the stockjobbers to receive dividends 
while the Bank was paying its debts in irredeemable paper!" So .saith Weed. The Schuyl- 
kill failed at the same time, and such was the moralltij oi ihe legislature and Gov. Porter, that 
they allowed the Penn.sylvania banks to divide 6 and 7 per cent, as profits, when they were 
openly bankrupt. If the misery caused to thousands by the sinking of 36 millions of capital 
in the Schuylkill and U. S. Banks could be seen by the people, no such departures Trom the 
laws of trade and currency would again be allowed. 

The Baltimore Convention which nominated Polk and Dallas resolved, that they were op- 
posed to the distribution of the proceeds of the public lands among the states. On July 3d, 
1832, in Senate, Dallas and his brother-in-law, Wilkins, voted for Clay's bill to distribute the 
proceeds of the public lands among the states, and that not by instructions, but as their unbi- 
a.ssed opinion. Clay, Ewing, Bell, Webster, Frelinghuy.sen, Poindexter, and Dickerson were 
on the same side, and the bill passed. So, too, on Internal Improvements, Dallas went witii 
Clay in 183-3, against Benton, Van Buren and Jackson — and, in 1837, Van Buren made him 
his Russian ambassador, offered him a seat in his cabinet in 1839, and in 1844 wrote to the 
citizens of New York, that he approved of him as the candidate of the anti-bank party for the 
office of Vice-President! In 1833, Wolf appointed Dallas attorney-general of Pennsylvania. 
In Senate, in 1832, Dallas voted against inquiring into Van Buren's conduct and in favor of 
his appointment as ambassador to England. To be true to Van Buren and his confederates, 
and able to serve the leaders, was the real test in 1837, and something akin to it is the test now. 
The decision Dallas gave, as Vice-President, in March, 1845, that those who framed the law 
for paying mileage to senators intended to place it in the power of the President of tlie U. S., 
by calling a new session of the Senate to-morrow, as a successor to that wliich closes to-day, to 
pay the .senators over $30,000 frrr travelling many thousand miles to and from Washington, 
when not one of them had left the city or travelled the first mile, was so iniquitous that I set 
him down at once as little better than a cheat in democratic politics. When the session termi- 
nated, March 3, he decided that the senators, not one of whom had left Washington, were en- 
titled to mileage or travelling charges to and from their homes, however distant, though the 
new executive sitting began within ten hours of the close of the old ! ! Such outrageous con- 
duct encourages men in less elevated stations to act dishonestlv. Ashley of Ark. got iflG80 — 
Barrow of La., S1840— Johnson, $1840— Sevier of Ark., $1680— Atchison of Mo., $1336— 
Breese and Semple of Ills., $1480 each— Jarnagin of Tenn., $1200 — Woodbndge of Mich., 
$903 — Bagby and Lewis of Ala., $-960 each — and so on for the others. Had this man not 
been a profligate pretender, lie had not received the support of Van Buren. I think it was one 
of Beimetl's Herald correspondents who exposed this iniquity in detail. He stated that Daniel 
C. Dickin.son, not satisfied with receiving pay for two journeys never performed, tried hard to 
be paid for three ! How painful it is to have to write in this way of a man who was voted 
for by millions of men as the V. P. of the republic ! 

V. P. Dallas is an excellent speaker, a man of prepossessing and dignified depoitment, and 
winning, courteous manners; and has the reputation of being a good scholar. He is tall, 
spare, and has an intellectual look, with a high, narrow forehead, thickly covered with long 
silvery locks. 

THOMAS RITCHIE. 
The Editor of The Union, at Washington, is about seventy years of age — tall, thin, spare, and 
rather bent — has a long, thin face, with a fine, bright eye, and a ver}' prominent nose, but has 
lost his teeth. His gait is quick, restless, and somewhat tremulous ; he is neat in his dress, 
fond of talking, and unwearied in industrj' ; pos.sesses tact, talent, great knowledge of men 
and things ; is a lively old gentleman, affable, courteous, polite ; an editor of 42 years' stand- 
ing, having commenced the Richmond Enquirer in his native state, on the 19th of May, 1804, 
and left it with his .sons, William F. and Thomas Ritchie, Junior, in the summer of 1844, when 
he removed to Wa.shington to take charge of PoUi's new paper. Mr. Ritchie entered active 
life as a teacher or usher in Richmond, was married on the 7th of February, 1807, to Miss Isa- 
bella, daughter of Dr. William Foushee, sometime postmaster of Richmond, and who died in 
1821, aged 75. In 1807, Ritchie was an enthusiastic advocate of home manufactures. That 
year, in Decemljcr, Mr. Monroe and family returned to Richmond from abroad, and at a Vir- 
ginia Welcome given to him, the governor being in the chair, the sixth regular toast was, 
" American Manufactures, the true .support of genuine independence" — received with tluee 



GREELEY ON RITCHIE GREENE, DABNEY AND TEXAS. 299 

cheers. Next first of June, a meeting was held at the capitoI, Richmond, the governor presid- 
ing, and Ritchie secretary ; when his (Ritchie's) tather-in-law proposed that a committee should 
be named " to digest a plan for the establishment of manufactures," and the governor named 
the late President Monroe, William Wirt, Pej'tcn Randolph, George Ha}^, (kc. The meeting 
also resolved with one accord to appear at the next -Ith of July tlressed in articles the manu- 
facture of some of the states. In 1829, Ritchie and his Enquirer had veered round to a nullifi- 
cation of protecting tariffs — now he is for just enough of a tariff" to keep the wheels of govern- 
ment well greased. Mr. Ritchie's family is large and well educated, and his daughters are 
married into wealthy and respectable Virginia families. I can easily imagine the immense in- 
fluence which an active, energetic politician, all life and soul, all bone and sinew, would exer- 
cise over an agricultural people he had been intimate with for half a century, by referring to 
the position I found myself in, some ten years ago, though on a far less extensive theatre of 
action. 

Ritchie has always been what is called a democrat, but of tlie truckling, time-serving kind. 
Leggett told him, through the Evening Post, that he was a political hypocrite and trickster — 
John Randolph, that he was a man of '• seven principles ; five loaves and two fishes " — the elder 
Duane (Sept. 1816) described him as the " self-convicted sycophant and tool of party" — Brooks 
of the Express represents him as a very able, but narrow, contracted, selfish bigot — and Horace 
Greeley (Jime 3, 1845,) sums up his politics as follows : 

"When it was Democratic to assail Gen. Jackson as utterly unfit for Civil or Political trust, no man assailed 
him more fiercely than Thomas Ritchie. But when, a few years thereafter, it became Democratic to commend 
Gen. Jackson as the paragon of Statesmanship and trustworthiness, no man laid it on thicker than Thomas 
Ritchie. In 1828, it was Democratic to advocate One Term only for a President, and Mr. Ritchie was very 
earnest for that. In 1832 and 1840, it was Democratic to support a President for a Second term, and Mr. Ritchie 
did his utmost on that side. In '2^-30, it was Democratic to advocate the Nullifying doctrines of Calhoun and 
Hayne, and declare them the very counterpart of ' the Resolutions of '98,' and Mr. Ritchie did this very 
thoroughly. In 1832-3, it was Democratic to condemn Nullification as utterly inconsistent with orthodox De- 
mocracy, and Mr. Ritchie did this quite effectively. In 1834-5, it was Democratic to praise the Pet Banks Sys- 
t«m, and nobody did it more heartily than Mr. Ritchie. In 1838, it had become Democratic to go the whole Hog 
for the Sub-Treasury and denounce the Pet Banks ; and though this was the hardest dose he had had yet, Mr. 
Ritchie gulped it down for Democracy's sake. Nobody was more ardent than Mr. R. in support of Van Buren 
while ' Democracy' smiled on hlni ; nobody did more to crush Mr. V. B. when Southern ' Democracy ' turned 
against him. Nay, more : our paragon of Democrats can be on both sides of a vital question at the same time 
when the interests of ' Democracy' require it — can advocate Dorrism for the North and stand fast by Slavery 
in the South — can sympathize with the victims of 'Algerine' tyranny in Rhode Island, but breathe not a 
whisper of dissatisfaction at the Constitution of his own Virginia which not only denies any vote at all to a 
poor white man while it allows his rich neighbor a dozen, but actually vests the Political Power of the State in 
about one-third of its Legal Voters." 

Ritchie can scold, fret, and be as abusive as John Van Buren when he likes — can sneer at 
Noah as " the Swiss mercenary" — mock John Tyler, as being on his return to the path of de- 
mocracy " now that he knows the whig party" — and hold up Jackson as a tyrant and a mur- 
derer, a curse and a blessing. 

One of his subscribers thus addresses him, Sept. 25, 1838 : 

" I like to show my colors sometimes. I went with you for the gun-boats, and against them, under Jefferson, 
and for the war, and against the gun-boats, under Madison. I followed you and Jefferson against the bank, 
ditto to you and Madison when he went for the bank. I read your paper and supported Monroe when you and 
he went against Jackson, and I turned against Adams, tooth and toe-nail ; and went for Jackson when you did 
the like. 1 loaded my fowling-piece when they began to talk about light-houses in the skies. I went for the 
proclamation, and against the proclamation in spots, and, after that, I resolved not to split the party for any- 
thing, and swallowed the removal of the deposits, the protest, the black lines, and last, though not least, Mr. 
Van Buren and Col. Dick Johnson. But I confess I'm bothered now. I want light, and would like to know, 
when it is convenient, whether I must go for principles without men, or men without principles ?" 

Ritchie has been often chosen printer to the Virginia Legislature, and he pretended great in- 
dependence of otfice in 1829, because his strictures on Jackson had left little hope of his getting 
anything valuable then in that quarter. His letters, page 214 to 216, show his views for the 
public eye. He is poor, lives in splendor, is a speculator, bets high, though not on General 
Jackson [see page 240], and advocates, through his Union, the turning out of the most upright 
public servants, if they are not as slavish to party and leaders in power as spaniels to the whip. 
" A Benjamin W. Greene of Richmond (says Blair's Globe) commenced without any capital 
except his assurance," became a great speculator and jockey, dealt in Texas lands and every- 
tliiug ; and when Dabney disappeared, a defaulter for hundreds of thousands, Greene was 
arrested as having had a large share of the spoil, and sent to jail, but not kept there long. 
Ritchie, his friend, sympathized with the evil-doers ; Malloiy, a confederate, was arrested, but 
he, too, had backers. One thing is certain, Ritchie's pecuniary embaiTas.sments were increased 



300 RITCHIE, HIS ENQUIRER, AND GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 

by these explosions ; and his errand at Washin.^'ton, like Marcy's, is to patch his pantaloons, or, 
in other words, make money, by monopolizing the printing of" the executive, the depnrtments, 
the Senate, and the House of Representatives ; and charging some S50,000 to S'75,000 more 
for doino- it than regular printers, bred to the business, could fairly exact. In other words, he 
and his partner are getting some S05,000 a year, over and above an honest compensation, thai 
beino- their share (in part) of the spoils of party, with the principle of plunder for its grip and 
countersign, as per last settlement at Baltimore. 

When Major Lewis and Mr. Polk quarrelled, Lewis had pnbli.shed a letter from Jackson 
to him, dated April 8, 181.5, which .showed that he was much displea.sed with Polk for dis- 
cardin'^ Blair. He says, " The Globe is to be bought ; by what political clique, and to sub- 
serve what interest 1 Is the renegade politician ******* to have an interest ? Who 
would trust him in politics or for money V 8ome say the seven stars meant General Simon 
Cameron of the Senate ; others strangely affirm that it was intended for Thomas Ritchie ! 
One thino- is certain. All other prints taken together, scarcely combined half the enmity and 
bitternesiT toward Jackson that was manifested by Ritchie and his backers through The 
ENauiRER, from the moment they knew that he [Jackson] intended to compete with the 
d)rnasty of Virginia for the imperial purple. [See Burr's letter, No. 296, page 259.] 

In December, 1818, Jackson was violently attacked in the Enquirer as having set the U. S. 
government at defiance in the last war, and insulted it. 

" I do not intend to follow him through the war he conducted against the Creeks in 1813-14. 
I mention the bloody massacre of Talapooze, only to express my grief for it ; shame and 
abhorrence. * * * The historian admits, that the general well knew they had ample 
reason for their desperation ; and the general himself tells the world, in his official despatch, 
that after the pursuit, or rather hunt (literally with fire and sword), and the carnage had con- 
tinued till darkness covered and concealed his miserable victims ; after he was apprised, that 
of their thousand warriors not half an hundred remained ; after a whole night to cool and re- 
flect on, the 7iext morning the hunt and slaughter ' weie resumed, and sixUen' (all that could be 
Ibund),'' of the enemy slain, who had coiicealed themselves under the banks' Yet I will not urge 
that as' a peculiar reproach against General Jackson, which I rather regard as a stain upon 
mv country. History will record that his blood\' deeds were received by his countrymen with 
general applause, while the clemency of colonel Pearson was regarded with contempt and re- 
sentment. Truly, sir, American avarice of Indian lands is equal to Spanish avarice of Indian 
gold." 

Ritchie next reminds Jackson that he had got a grant from these poor crushed Creeks ; that 
he (Ritchie) was sorry to say that which might aftcct his [Jackson's] private character, but 
that the transaction was such a one as the U. S. Senate had absolutel}' refused to sanction. 
He accuses Jackson of wanton tyranny at New Orleans in proclaiming martial law ; adding, 
that " The ready resort to violent measures in all situations of difficulty is generally the result 
of weakness of 'understanding and wickedness of heart combined." That jfackson " rests his 
defence upon the tyrant's plea, necessity" — but that, " During the arduous struggle of the re- 
" volution, martial law was never once proclaimed. Amidst the distraction of a civil war, 
" when refugees and tories were embodied in the service of the enemy, and their friends and 
" kindred dispensed over the country. General Washington, though for a time clothed with al- 
" most dictatorial powers, never proclaimed martial law. When General Green was flying 
" before Lord Cornwallis through the Carolinas, and his enemy was deriving almost as much 
" aid from the tories as he could obtain from the whigs of that country, he yet never proclaimed 
" martial law." 

Ritchie's journal proceeds to accuse Jack.son of continuing this extraordinary rule " during 
his ninety days' tyranny," when war had ceased, and of trampling on the freedom of the press, 
and on the institutions of his country, of insulting a judge on the bench, banishing him, ex- 
posing his function to contempt. " He demanded [says the Enquirer] leave to abuse and 
vilify the judge ! The written defence he oflered, being rejected by the court, was printed. I 
should smile at its sophistry, if I were not alarmed at its audacity, and disgusted at the impu- 
dence with which he pleads, as his protection from summary punishment, the very constitu- 
tion and laws he had so long and so recklessly trampled under loot ; and denies his own plea 
of necessity as a proper foundation for the known .settled practice of our courts of justice in 
cases of contempt. He was fined a thousand dollars. In the course of the hearing he inter- 
rupted, insulted and browbeat the judge on the judgment-seat." The ENauiREii goes on to 
describe the deaths of Arbuthnot and Ambri.stcr as wanton, cruel, unmanly murders. " Thus, 
.sir, has an American officer [Jackson] destroyed the lives of two of his fellow-creatures, 
without any rightful power, without any adequate motive, and with such indecent precipi- 
tancy as hardly to give lime for prayer in the interval between judgment and death. Human- 
ity bleeds at the recital ; and national pride sinks in the American heart, oppressed with the 
load of shame and griet'. He has abrogated the known laws of nations, and promulgated a 
new code of his own, conceived in madnesri or folly and written in blood; he has, in fine, 
violated all laws human and divine, and violated them with impunity." 



POLK, JOHNSON- AND MAODUFFIE AGAINST CHEAP POSTAGE. 301 

i=IiSlSSra%S;L^£SgHw 

°"7:f'^mf TMs ?s he ndependent patriot who wouia not be the hanger-on of power 

him powerfully. The Tribune states, on personal knowledge, that lexas lanas, scrip, o«,. 
are exercising a powerful influence ove r the press. 

THE POSTAGE LAW, 

^, ,. e r r. i.r.r^^ nf thp o-reatand I trust, enduring improvements of the age. 

Though no perfection IS ^f f f J^^|^f,J;^f^?' ostma-^ter-geneFal, whose narrow mind or 
President Polk has g ven us ^^^^ Jomison K Of his administration I can say 

ijuerest in slavery made 1^"^ OPP^^^ ^^^f^ metiatttoea;e no adequate checks in his depart- 
but little. Those who ought to ^^^^ J' ^^^j ^^^^^ f JJch f When this excellent measure was at 
^fl^^- /' ^11" CoWl SuSlo^s'^., pale anVi^ Tad health, rose to oppose it, because 
Its third reading, V°^°^*^\t^ . ."Ifr, fnd President Polk sings the same song in his roes- 
it would be a burthen on he treasury and President roiK^n ^ ^^.j_ 

sa^. He would " limit its expendituie to ^^^^^^^^^ of 7he skve-owners, and to risk war 

lions to drive the ^^^^^ ''^Z'^^^ve'^en^^^^ millions of revenue for armies, 

with Mexico, &c., by the Texas move , waei i ^ ^^^^^ Johnson 

navies, and the apparatus of ^^■«'^' ^"/"Pf "„;^' JJi^^nc^fo^ all as well worthy a small and 
and James K. ^-'^^^^f^^^^^^^ffi, to"ii^^neT£Lce 1 Is not knowledge power 1 
temporary protection as lh^.othe^^^^^ JJ'.J ^ great means of increasing knowledge 1 The 
And is not cheap postage '^letters and papers a re^i^^^^^ 

cost of northern postage is almost '^o'^^^^'^.J. ^ P^^^^^^^^ slave-holding families. Our 

in the south, where tew receive ^'^.f^'^^^IS^'e^-Xnio^^^^^^ law, o^ the heads of depart- 
postmaster here has ^^^"f^^i^re "v plaira^^^ ^as an arm'y of auxiliaries, ^hy 
ments at Washington. His duties are \ er) pi , ^ ^ ^ for ^^ „ ^i i and be 

should a man at Richmond, Cmcinnati Buflalo or ^^e eaer ge eonvenience to the 

obliged to paj^hereysUiisum^^^^^^^^ 

post-office 1 Why tax the ^.'^^''^^^^^^^ j„to an officer's well-filled wallet 1 McDuffie 

to put an enormous ™isite^^^^^^^^ ,,ith strongly-marked 

SSSllJSe'ffS^orL^ -^^^ '^ '' '''-' '-''''' ''' 

perspicuous.^ Morris's income mus exceed Sl^^OOa-^^^^ That is a mistake. When in- 
^Silas Wright is erroneously termed an anti-sla.en man^^^ Vennont, he wrote in his an- 
vited in the summer ot 1837 to a public ^^^^f//' "f "[^e "dUt^^ the age of twenty, for 
?-J'^^irS l'v.Vl^i:Lt S^& l^i'^^Jr HilD-that van Bnre/Wa. 



302 WRIGHT, VAN BUREN, AND THKIR 1^5^ PIP. RUB. SOD. 

the rignt-Rvm of Tompkins, last war, when he sustained the Union; that " those fanatics (the 
abolitionists) are already attempting to agitate the pitblic mind as to the e\nl of slavery in the 
abstract," although '■ they knew well that any attempt to abolish slavery in the district of Co- 
lumbia, while it exists in the surrounding states of Maryland and Virginia, cannot have the 
effect to give freedom to a single slave, but would compel their transfer to new masters in the 
slave states." Wright is opposed to the one tenii principle for the presidency. He wrote to 
Ohio, Dec. 1842, that " the political fate of her [N. Y.] vice-presidents has been satisfactory 
to her republicans, because they were permitted to serve out the time anticipated by their 
friends. . . Not so Aiath the Presidents, they have been permitted to present. He [V. B.J served 
but one term," &c. Wright voted for the Ashburton treaty; and at Herkimer in 1828, pre- 
pared the resolve for Throop's nomination. He went Jackson as a sad necessity. The harsh 
correspondence in 1819 between Scott and Jackson is not forgotten. On the 4th of July anni- 
versary dinner in 1820, at Albany, Van Buren presided, and one of the regular toasts was — 
" Major-Generals Peter B. Porter and Winfield Scott — they were among the first, and the last, 
and the best in the field." Jackson's services were not even noticed, nor his name mentioned, 
not even as a volunteer. Just eight years later, Van Buren was intriguing for Jackson all 
over the Union. Here is a .specimen : 

Mr. Van Buren to C. A. Wickliffe. " New York, July 8, 1828. 

" My Dear Sir, — I have received yours at this place, and thank you for it. You may as- 
sure your friends in Kentucky-, that the vote of this state will be stronger for General Jackson 
than his most sanguine friends anticipated. Of three-fotirths t/icre is tiot the slightest doubt. I 
care not who you show this letter to, but keep me out of the newspapers. In haste, your friend, 

M. Van Buren." 

The same to T. P. Moore. Same date. — " Our friends abroad may calculate vntk absolute 
certainty on at least three-fourths of the votes of this .state. There is 7W d&ubtofit. Nothing 
short of the death of our candidate can, I think, prevent it. If Barrj- [W. T.J .succeeds in 
your state, the administration will find it extremely difficult to keep their troops in the field in 
this. ... M. Van Bcren." 

I find Thomas P. Moore amongst the Polk appointments of last month — as Indian Agent 
on the Upper Missouri. The above letters to him and Wickliffe, were intended to operate on 
the election of the Governor of Kentucky. When President, Van Buren, after making a 
show of unwillingness, ratified the Seneca Indian Treaty, illegally, for he knew that two-lbirdf? 
of the Senate had not voted for it. The way in which the Indians are treated renders it any- 
thing but surprising that they should thirst far vengeance. Van Buren visited Tammany 
Hall in March la.st. M. V. B. at Tammany Hall ! Mike Walsh in prison ! ! and Butler, 
Price, Swartwout, Hoyt, Dabney, Greene, Levis, Boj'd and Hawkins, not in prison ! ! ! Is 
this arrangement IFright? 



COMMON AND CHANCERY LAW— VAN BUREN ON THE CONVENTION. 

It was with reason that Lord Coke exclaimed, " Miserable, miserable, is the slavery of that 
people among whom the law is either imsettled or unknown !" And that it is un.settled in 
America, any one who has looked at the conflicting decisions of our courts will readily 
acknowledge. We cling to the feudal jurisprudence of England, and refuse to reduce the 
rules by which men are to be guided in society to scientific arrangements, with gocxi laws, and 
the examples beside the precept. We speak of giving thirty millions for a steam navv — much 
better would it be for us to call togetheV from all parts of the Union, aye, of the earth, men 
famed for their learning of law, and ask them to solve the questions, Whether it is possible for 
youths to become acquainted with law enough to entitle them to plead for their neighbors, 
without requiring a lil)rary of thousands of volumes, filled with the conflicting decisions of' 
jurists, the statutes, ordinances, and real or supposed usages of the old world and the new 1 
Whether it is impossible to obtain for the magistracy of this republic, a clear, conci.se. popular, 
vet upright code, which its ^.'iOO judges and justices might comprehend and apply in lieu of the 
COMMON law of England, much of which, according to a learned recorder of IS^cw York (who 
has since exchanged the duty of charging juries for that of discharging mail-bags), is unknown, 
never having been either written or printed 1 

A my.sterious prescription livthe facultv of medicine, said to be in daily use, is: "R. — Pulv. 
Pip. Riib. ; Hyd. Chlor. SckI. ; 'Acid. Acet'. ; Mel. Desp. ; Aqu. Fluv., M. Ft. Garg. sig. ; Sum. 
p. r. n." Even this " pip. rub. sod." is not so metaphysical as our anglo-democratic law, for 
Drs. Mott or R.Nelson could tell that it is an advice to "take red pepper, salt, vinegar, honey, 
and water, mix and jnake into a gargle," often useful enough in fevers and .sore throat; but 
in common law, even the learned professors t-annot agree either as to the mode-s or remedies 
of procedure to get the good of them. Cliiiioii vai.ily recommended a legal code in 1H*25, to a 
buckiail lei;islature; I'roiigliam, Romilly, Beruham and Mackintosh are amongthe advocates 
of a sy.stem or code of rules founded on a natural arrangement of those actions which are the 
subjects of legislation. Major Green, of the Boston Post, truly remarks, that 



COMMON AND CHANCERY LAW REFORM. 303 

" A citizen may study the Revised Statutes and all the state laws till he can repeat every 
section, and yet he laiows nothing of the offences tor which he may be tried and punished, un- 
til he finds out what the laws of England are, and what the judges may think proper to apply 
to any case, when they can find no ready made law at home. Even the progress of civilisa- 
tion and common sense in England is not allowed to be applicable to our condition here. An 
absurd, barliarous. tyrannical law, which may have been repealed and driven from the com- 
munity in Great Britain, as unjust even in a monarchy, is nevertheless good enough law for 
the free citizens of the United States!" 

The wretched condition of the common law, in force here, was clearly shown not many 
months since in the case of O'Connell and others. They were tried in the principal common 
law court of Ireland for a penal oftence, kept three months in the penitentiary, pronounced to 
be criminals by the learned judges and crown lawyers ; and then their prison doors were open- 
ed; they were entreated to accept of freedom ; the twelve judges of England, with one accord, 
and on oath, had declared that that part of O'Connell's indictment which the whole of the Irish 
judges had pronoimced to be good, at common law, was bad, and no law at all ; and that 
O'Connell and his companions were held in unlawful durance. So also said the House of 
Lords; Lord Chief Justice Denman declaring that the trial was a " mockery, a delusion, and 
a snare." I felt the force of his reasoning, for I was twelve months confined as unlawfully at 
Rochester as O'Connell was at Kilmainham — but for the poor there is but little justice any- 
where. So expensive is an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, that my friends 
found it impossible to raise the money. 

When a railroad is laid out we try to make it as straight and level as possible. Should not 
our law-road be straight also 1 Lawyers are men of as warm, generous, and kindly feelings 
as others — they are equally honorable — but if society shall continue to honor legal talent 
where it snatches a villain of the deepest dye from merited pimishment — if Governors and 
Judges shall continue to act under an imperfect system — if the art of the Attorney must be 
learnt, with all its technicalities and barbarous " pip. rub. sod. " pedantrj', by the American 
scientific pleader — if the student must set up shop, buy an expensive library, and if he then, 
in nine cases out of ten, finds it impossible to exist as an honest, expounder of royal law, is it 
wonderful that, Butler like, he joins some stock-jobber to jockey the people through a sham 
bank ; or Hoyt like, cringes to power till he can perch himself in a collector's office, there to 
embezzle wholesale, and fee a legal regiment for defence, out of the plunder 1 Governor 
Wright in his message last January, told the Legislature that " the fewest and simplest laws 
consistent with the security of the great objects to be attained, and the lightest burthens which 
their enforcement will permit, must be the best and wisest execution of the trust " they had 
accepted. Look at their debates and proceedings for the result, and say if a remedy is not 
required 1 The merchant, farmer, landlord, tenant, tradesman, mechanic — all sufi'er in tiu-n, 
and often very severely, by our defective law system. Governor Wright's indicator, the At- 
las, mocks us with its substitutes for an effectual cure. It is men learned in the law, studious, 
experienced, and practical, that New York must look to for a code — and if we were to pay 
millions for it, never did any people make a wiser purcha.se. 

As to the Chancery Court, I never had anything to do with it until the publication of my 
last book. I opposed its introduction into Upper Canada, as a member of the legislature, not 
because I thought the system complete without it, but becau.se I did not believe its substitution 
of secret examinations in lawj^ers' offices, for open ones before the world — its practice, exceed- 
ingly arbitrary and artificial, depending on rules made by its administrators, and upon no 
general principle of law — its questionable barriers as to what cases are doubtful, obscure, and 
therefore fit for equity coiu'ts — its control over money, property, everything, with chancery 
judges exported from London, not for their fitness, but in payment of debts political, would be 
an improvement. Here, Verplanck, and other enquiring minds, have .sought to give an ade- 
quate remedy for constituted abuses, but have failed — and the danger is, that some" quack will. 
Van Buren like, prescribe a nostrum even worse than the charlatanrie that now obtains. 

What is wanted is a code of law, a system whereby one judge, presiding in one court, can 
do all — with rules of practice, not of his dictation, but framed and adapted for his guidance by 
the community. Common LaAV is built on old precedents — equity also professes to be guided 
by what has been done. If the one can be codified, why may it not include the other 1 If our 
laws are scientifically arranged and equitable, why have other conflicting jurisdictions w'ith 
unconfined powers 1 If they are loose and confused, are not life and property thereby endan- 
gered 1 

" Equity, as a separate system," says Verplanck, " can hardly be said to have worked well 
anywhere. Its uncertainty, its immense powers, and still more, its delays and expenses, have 
always been a subject of public complaint. Its mode of taking testimony has been pronounced 
by high professional authority to be the very worst ever devised ; dilatory, expensive, and 
opening a door to the gi'ossest perjury, and the vilest frauds. Its advantages are, that its 
powers are great and undefined — its process strict and starching. So, too, are those of an ar- 
bitrary judge in a half- civilized country, a iMandarin or a Cadi." 



304 FRANKLIN, HANCOCK, GUSHING AND PRIVATE LETTERS. 

Hoyt has a.^tonished this community by swearing that the letters published in my former 
pamphlet are genuine, and asking the profits of publication. With profits I had nothing to do. 
There have been appeals, bills, demurrers, injunctions, hearings, and decisions. I cared for 
one thing only ; and that was to get the facts before the people. Were their attention well di- 
rected to the Court of Chancery, a change for the better might take place speedily. Walworth, 
the Chancellor, I had seen before, when he called at my office, inquiring for his "friend Speaker 
Papineau — JNIcCoun I had not seen, and only heard of him in the old duel case of Eckford, 
Decatur, &;c., and when he took the circuit judge's place in 1831, on the equity side. I think 
the interference of McCoun, as far as copyright was concerned, was a violation of several im- 
portant provisions in the U. S. Constitution, and that his decision in the Mitchell case (Wet- 
more vs. Scovell) forms a curious contra.st with the course he took in mine. Being very poor, 
I keep on the defensive — but had I been involved in such a case twentj' years ago, the folks in 
Canada are my wimesses, that I would have done battle for the right most cheerfully. The 
permanence of this government depends on its justice, and if the manly electors of New York 
will but wake up to the importance of the crisis, the world may yet bless the hour in which 
the greatest State in the Union called together the Convention of 1846. 

In 1769 to 1773, private and secret letters were written by great men in Boston to official 
characters in London, against the people. Lieut. Gov. Oliver WTOte " that some method should 
be demised to take off the original incendiaries, whose writings supplied the fuel of sedition 
through, the Boston Gazette." Secret assassination was tried accoiflingly ; Mr. Otis, King's 
Advocate, a bold liberal, was attacked in his own house with bludgeons, and left for dead. 
Governor Hutchinson said, '■ The union of the Colonies is pretty well broke : I hope I shall 
never see it renewed. There must be an abridgment of Engli-sh liberties in the Colonies." 
Judge Oliver wrote how to harass the Americans, adding, " By such a step the game will be 
np with my countrymen." Such letters as these induced the king to refuse wise counsel ; Dr. 
Williamson, an eminent American, then in London, got hold of the letters; he gave them to 
Franklin, who enclosed them to Speaker Cushing, in Boston ; Samuel Adams and John Han- 
cock read them to the Legislature of Mass. ; they were published ; the Assembly petitioned their 
King to remove the slanderers ; the privy council met, and Wedderbum insulted Franklin ; 
his speech was published in the London papers, and says Franklin, " It was the ton -with all 
the ministerial folks to abuse them [the Yaiikees] and me, in every company and in every 
newspaper." The King, Feb. 7, 1774, ordered the Bo.ston petition to be dismissed " as ground- 
less, frivolous, vexatious, and scandalous;" stopt Franklin's salary as Colonial Agent ; took 
from him his office of Postmaster General ; and the government backed Whately in oppress- 
ing this man, whose memory the proudest monarch might envy, with a suit in Chancery before 
the McCoun of that day, to get back the letters and the profits [ ! ! ] he had made by publish- 
ing them. Franklin could not .stand this accumulation of persecution. " My finances (says 
he) are not sufficient to cope at law with the treasury here." He returned to America. 

In his speech before the Lords of the Pri\y Council, Wedderburn [Lord Loughborough] 
said ; " Nothing then will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining them [the secret let- 
ter.sj bv fraudulent or corrupt means, for the most malignant of purposes; unless he stok them 
from the jiorson who siok them. I hope, my lords, you will mark and l:)rand the man, for the 
honor of his country, of Europe, and of mankind. Private correspondence has hitherto been 
held sacred in the times of the greatest party rage, not only in politics, but religion. He has 
forfeited all respect of .societies and of men. Into what companies -will he hereafter go with 
an unembarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity of virtue "? Men will watch him with a jeal- 
ous eye ; they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their escrutoires. He will hence- 
forth esteem it a libel to be called a man of letters, ho7no trium likraruvi ! " — PinnldMs Mc- 
vimrs, vol. i, p. 319. He concluded by comparing the great philosopher and patriot of the 
Western world to Zanga, in Young's Revenge. " I ask, my lords, whether the revengeful 
temper, atr-,!>i!ted by poetic fiction only to the bloody African, is not surpa.s.sed by the coolness 
and apathy ni' the wily American." 

A bill iioiu the Assembly of tliis state was .«cnt, in 1818, to the Senate, for concurrence, 
which J -o posed to free those who had dealings in .small sums, from the chicanery, delays, and 
enorrno IS costs imposed by trading attorneys, by allowing a single justice to try ca.ses of $50 
and under, whether the action was against an individual, a privileged lawyer, a company, or 
the officer of a court — authorizing any citizen to explain the nature of the claim or plea of any 
other citi/en — and annulling and putting an end to that odious monopoly of pleading and de- 
fence by which privileged attorneys had reaped enormous gains from a pillaged people — .so far 
a.s debts under S50 were concerned. This attempt to introduce practical democracy was re- 
garded by Van Buren with horror. lie was eloquent again.st the bill — condemned its princi- 
ple — wondered how justice.s, ignorant of the law, could decide cases of debt — and when h« 
li.'und the bill would pass, moved [see senate journal, page 187] to add to the bill the following 
ciatise : 

'• And U' it further enacted, that it shall not be lawful for any person, NOT A LICENSED 
AirOilNEV OR COUNSELLOR OF THE SUPREME COURT Oil COURT OF 



VAN BUREN AND BEACH ON LAWS AND CONVENTIONS. 305 

COMMON PLEAS OP THIS STATE, or who shall not be actually engaged in the regular 
study of the Law, TO APPEAR AND ADVOCATE ANY CAUSE i:|=FOR AN- 
OTHER BEFORE A JUSTICE OF THE PEACE," 

Here Van Buren's party deserted him — the bill allowed those who v.anted attorneys to hire 
them, and it did not force the poor man, who felt he had been wrongfully prosecuted tor $5 he 
did not owe, to hire an attorney's apprentice to state his case for a fee of other $3, when his 
neighbor the machinist, carpenter, or printer, was ready to do it truly and correctly lor nothing. 
Van Buren's monopoly clause was voted down. Yeas, Van Buren, &c., 6. Nays, Sam. 
Young, &c., 18. 

The bill also provided that cognovits or confessions of judgment, for ^100 and under, might be 
taken before a single justice of the peace, whose fee should be 25 cents. (It was ^12 in U. Cana- 
da when I first settled tliere !) Judgments were to be a shilling, and so on. Van Buren, Van 
Vechten, and Young addressed the Senate against the bill ; it would injui'e the profession, ren- 
der law too cheap, and encourage litigation. The bill pas,sed, 18 to IL See pages 195-6 of 
senate journal. Among the f^ Nays on the final vote were Van Buren, Hammond, and 
Samuel Young. 

On June 12, 1819, it was proposed in Senate to allow county courts to try all cases which do 
not affect life ; but if it was a case involving the state prison for life, one of the judges must be 
a councillor of tkree years' standing. Ross said if the law3'er held the rank of councillor it 
was surely enough ; he would move to strike out the words " three years' standing." Young and 
other 9 went for that, but Van Biu-en defeated them. 

On 6th of April, 1819, in Senate, Hammond reported a bill to prevent lawyers from taking 
too much for foreclosing a mortgage, over and above printer's bill, affidavit, and conveyance 
recording, &c. Van Buren moved to give the attorney ^25. Lost. Young proposed $20. 
Carried. But the bill was got rid of. In 1821, the convention made some improvements. 

Now, 1846, we are on the eve of another convention. To it Croswell was not verv friendly, 
and Van Buren and Wright could scarce conceal their vexation when the honest democrats 
and Whigs coalesced in its favor. Here is Van Buren's letter, addressed to Peter Cagger, A» 
bany: 

"Lindenwald, May 19, 1845. Dear Sir: ***** I had, however, allowed myself to hope that these 
amendments, and especially that which would make the State secure against the abuses of the power to bor- 
row money, from which it has itself so severely suffered, and by which so many of its sister States have been 
overwhelmed, might, by perseverance, be obtained in the mode provided by the constitution, before any mate- 
rial inroad was made upon the cherished, and as it was supposed, well established policy of the State in 
regard to its finances and public works. For that reason, and on account of what I believed to be a well- 
groimded apprehension of the bad ellects that might result from the disturbed condition of portions of the public 
mind, upon points not heretofore involved in the political issues upon which parties have divided, I have been 
very decidedly in favor of a postponement of the Convention movement, and that preference has been unre- 
servedly expressed to the few who did me the honor to ask my opinion upon the subject. 

" Whether I would have retained and acted upon that preference if I had been a member of the Legislature 
and witnessed the passage through both its branches of a bill, which would, if it had become a law, have 
caused so sudden and so injurious a revolution in what was hoped to be the established policy of the State, 
upoB a point of prominent importance, is very doubtful. As matters stand, my advice to the meeting and to the 
Democracy of the State, is to bury their past divisions, and to do all in their power to carry tlio great measure 
of a Convention to a successful and safe result, by united counsels, and vigorous, but temperate and di.^creet 
efforts. I am, dear sir, very respectfully and truly yours. M. VAN BUREN." 

Look at the conduct of the legislature, at its language, at the opinions of members touching 
the public press and each other — and say, Is it a supervising eye placed on an eminence, and 
seeing all around 1 Is it a mill for grinding good laws, if .sparely fed with complaints and 
memorials 1 Or is it the tumult of contending factions, silencing the more patriotic 1 Say 
which ; and then ask }'ourselves, whether, if laws devised, examined and improved by the best 
legal talent in N. Y. state, need revision, how much more tho.se laws Avhich were never laid 
before any legislature, and which are only the opinions of judges dependent on arbitrary kings 
during the dark ages of English history 1 " Our laws and decisions (said John C. Spencer, in 
the Assembly of N. Y., Jan. 6, 1820) are numerous and complicated, and it neces.'-arily de- 
volves upon the judges to expound them ; and if the gentleman dislikes the laws, and the mode 
of expounding them, he might adopt the recommendation of the late Governor Plumer, of 
New Hampshire, and propose to have the whole British common law reduced to a code. Let 
the gentleman from Delaware [General Root] devote himself to the subject, and reduce the 
whole of our multifarious laws and numerous decisions into a code at once, and render them 
clear and consistent." In his notes on De Tocqueville Mr. S. takes another view. 

MOSES Y. BEACH ON TEXAS. INFLUENCE OF THE SUN. 

The Sun, a penny paper of considerable influence and large circulation in New York, was 
commenced, as Mr. Beach slates, " on the 3d of Sept. 1833, in a small back room in an ob- 
scure part of William street," with an edition of 500, and of the size of a sheet of letter pa- 
per ; " the entire strength of the establishment, intellectual, physical, and mechanical, consisted 
of one man and one boy." The sale paid expenses, and left profit enough to buy them a sup- 
B 



306 M. Y. BEACH ON POLK, CALHOUN, HOUSTON, MARCY AND TEXAS. 

per. The present owner, M. Y. Beach, states, that he served his apprenticeship to a cabinet- 
maker in Hartlbrd ; worlied long and hard, late and early ; and now owns three banks and 
his newspaper. 1 was his neighbor in 1838, and noted that he looked carefully after his busi- 
ness. At that time, as now, the paper professed decorum of language and independence of 
party. Mr. Beach is not much of a writer himself, ^:^ but he employs those editors, and those 
only, who will faithfully express sentiments in unison with hisown.^H In 183G he had the 
genuine American feelings of the honest and faitlii'ul class whose patronage has raised him to 
wealth, and who were delighted, no doubt, at the independent, republican tone of liis cheap 
and useful sheet. He took a bold stand then against Texas with slavery, and censured with 
great severity the attempts of Polk, Calhoun, Houston, Jackson, and McDuffie, to crush free- 
dom in the north, by extending the curse of slavery to the .south, in violation of treaties, not 
made with a powerful monarchy, but a weak, confiding sister republic. I add (to Mr. Beach's 
honor be it said) his commentary on Samuel Houston's letter to Dunlap at Nashville, asking 
aid to dismember Mexico. 

[From the New York Sun, by Moses Y. Beach, 1836.] 

" In the earlier days of our repulilic, when a high-minded and honorable tidelity to its constitution was an 
object paramount to every mercenary consideration that might contravene it, an avowed design of this kind 
against the possessions of a nation with whom the United States were at peace, would have subjected its au- 
thor, if a citizen, to the charge of high treason, and to its consequences. When Aaron Burr and his associates 
were supposed to meditate tihe conciuest of Mexico, and attempted to raise troops in the southern states to 
achieve it, they were arrested for treason, and Burr, their chief, was tried for his life. But now, behold ! the 
conquest of a part of the same country is an object openly proclaimed, not in the letters of General Houston 
alone, but by many of our wealthiest citizens at public banquets, and by the hireling presses in the chief cities 
of our Union. The annexation of a foreign territory to our own by foreign conquest, being thus unblushingly 
avowed, and our citizens who are integral portions of our national sovereignty being openly invited and incited 
to join the crusade with weapons of war, it becomes au interesting moral inquiry — what is there in the public 
mind to excuse or even to palliate so flagrant a prostitution of national faith and honor in these days, any more 
than in the days that are past 1 The answer is ready at hand, and is irrefutable. An extensive and well 
organized gang of swindlers in Te.xas lands, have raised the cry and the standard of ' Liberty !' and to the 
tluilling charm of this glorious word, which stirs the blood of a free people as the blast of a bugle arouses 
every nerve of the war-horse, have the generous feelings of our citizens responded in ardent delusion. But, 
as the Conunercial Advertiser truly declares, ' Never was the Goddess of American Liberty invoked more un- 
righteously ;* and we cannot but believe that the natural sagacity, good sense, and proud regard for their na- 
tional honor, for which our citizens are distinguished in the eyes of all nations, will speedily rescue them from 
the otherwise degrading error In which that vile crew of mercenary, hypocritical swindlers would involve 
them. The artful deceivers, however, have not relied upon the generosity and noble sympathy of our fellow- 
citizens, for they insidiously presented a bribe to excite their cupidity also. They have not only falsely repre- 
sented the Texian cause as one of pure, disinterested liberty and justice, as opjKised to perfidious tyranny and 
cruel oppression, but they have themselves assumed something more than the liberty which they basely and 
hypocritically advocate, by impudently promising a fertile paradisaical piece of Texian land, a mile square, to 
every American citizen and foreign emigrant who will sally forth to capture it from the Me.\ican republic ! l;l- 
duced by one or both of these objects, many hundreds of our enterprising citizens let! their own ample and 
unobjectionable country to unite with Irish, English, and other foreign adventurers in a war, from the fullest 
success of wlilch only some six or eight Land Companies, who have fraudulently and audaciously monopo- 
lized the Texian territory, would gain an important benefit. And to this shrine of ostensible liberty have 
many hundreds of our gallant youth been treacherously sacri ficed — sacrificed by a mercenary treachery, compared 
to which that exercised by Santa Anna, in defence of the Republic of which he was President, was innocence 
and patriotism. The oliject of the colonizing land agents of the South was to make this prolific province their 
own, and the field of a new and lucrative negro slavery. To this they still tenaciously adhere ; and if they 
can induce a strong force of our American youth to shed their blood for the unjust and avaricious cause of 
slavery, under the name of Texian liberty and indei)endence, they will undoubtedly secure their object. We doubt 
not the ability of our gallant countrymen to exterminate any ninuber of Mexicans that can be brought against 
them ; but in nghting for the union of Texas with the United .Stjites, which is the avowed meaning of ' Texian 
Indei)endence,' thty will be fighting for that which at vo distant period will inevitably dissolve the Union. The 
slave states, having this eligible addition to their land of bondaire, with ils harbors, bays, and well bounded 
geographical position, will ere long cut asunder the federal tie which they have long held with ungracious and 
unfraternnl fingers, and confederate a new and distinct slaveholding republic, in opposition to the whole free 
republic of the North. Thus early will Iw fulfilled the predictions of the old iwliticians of Europe, that onr 
Union would not remain a century — and then also will the maxim be exeniplified in our history, as it is in the 
history of tiie slaveholding republics of old, that liberty and slavery cannot long inhabit the same soil." 

It is creditable to Beach that he is wealthy, the owner of three banks and a powerful jour- 
nal. But, I a.sk him to explain, why Thk Sun of 181G claims to be the originator of that dis- 
graceful act which it denounced in ]83(), as the object of that vile crew of "mercenary, hyp> 
critical swindlers," traitors to their country, bent upon dismembering the republic ] Mordecai 
M. Noah, who is hired as principal editor of the Sun, by Beach, now, was in 183(5, (as editor 
of the Star,^ for Texas and slavery: he has not changed, but why i.s Beach, the independent 
mechanic, Ix-come the confederate of those M'ho drive a detestable tralllc in the .south, and seek 
tij add us northerns to their plantations of liondsmen 7 Why is the Beach ^vho once saw a 
dissoluti(m of the Union in Texan annexation, now ready to grn.sp at all Mexico? Why is 
it thought essential now (June Ilth) t<j say, " We are and always have been in favor of the 
Annexation ofTexa.s, and never at any time entertained the impression that Mexico had any 
riglits in Texas, or could recover that country by the force of arms. We never believed that 
we were doing injustice to Mexico," iVc. &<:., when old subscriber.s, myself among the number, 
know that thk Sun thought that those who took Houston's course deserved the traitor's fate"? 
The question has not changed — .slavery and robbery are what they were when Houston's 



VAN BUREN's early KNOWLEDGE OF BANK AND STATE UNIONS. 307 

'•' mercenaiy treachery" was odious in Beach's sight. It is asserted, and I l-elieve it, that 
Beach, had he not been first silenced, and then brought quite round, could, through The Sun, 
have prevented annexation. I do not overrate the power of his press when I say this ; and as 
it is hinted, both privately and publicly, that those mercenary motives, that desire for Texas 
land, and still more, to give new value to Texas serin, which Beach ascribed to others, finally 
seduced himself, and caused him to turn and follow* Marcy, Houston, and the slave traders, 
heedless of the injur)^ he did to his own class, and the good cause of freedom, which he once 
Highly valued, 1 ask'him to explain the above paragraph, as compared with his present cour.se. 

It is right that I should here state, that I do not know that Mr. Beach has, or ever had, any 
pecuniary inducement to change his course — but as his editors are merely the tools or instru- 
ments he Avorks with, and thrown by when they do not suit him, I am warranted in asking 
why he has thus used the vast power'placed in liis hands, for temperate and patriotic purposes, 
by a confiding public. 

An account of the Lehigh Bank was WTitten for this work, in connexion with the case of 
Van Buren's friend, Daniel M'Cook, a delegate to the Baltimore Convention rf 1810, and 
now in trouble at Harrisburgh. It seemed to be the better course, however, to await the result 
of pending proceedings, and not attempt to prejudge, through a publication likely to be exten- 
sively circulated, a case of which a jury will sooner obtain all the facts. 

VAN BUREN AND THE BANK OF HUDSON. 

Report of a Committee of the House of Assembly of New York, on the bankrupt Bank of 
Hudson, Feb. 3, 1823. 

The committee to whom was referred the report of the Attorney General, [Talcott,] with 
accompanying documents, relative to the Bank of Hudson, Report, That the documents 
accompanying said report, appear to be an examination at length, by James Powers and 
Robert Dorlon, Esqrs. commissioners appointed to inquire into the affairs of the Bank of Hud- 
son. The examination and report of the commissioners, is, in itself, an elaborate produc- 
tion, embracing many, if not most of the prominent transactions relating t-o the affairs and man- 
agement of this institution, for many years; also its situation at the time of the failure thereof. 

That it discloses a scene of wild speculation, ruinous and improvident management, on the 
part of many of its officers, regardless of their own characters, and the ordinar}'or strict rules 
of banking institutions; a summary view will in part be given. 

Losses have been sustained by large amounts of paper having been placed in the hands of 
agents (who gave no security,) for the purpose of forcing it into circulation, by exchanging it 
for paper of other banks. Discounts apparently have been made for large amounts, without 
a competent number of the board being present : and as it appears from the minutes, in some 
instances, notes have been entered as discounted or renewed, without the directors being pi'e- 
sent. Notes for large amounts have been suffered to lie over, without either payment or pro- 
test, thereby discharging the endor.sers from their liabilit}'. Notes have been discounted for 
large sums, (in violation of a rule for the government of its officers,) having but one endorser, 
and in one instance a note for $10,000, was discounted without any. One of the cashiers 
gave no security for the faithful performance of his duty ; and although worth but $5000 in real 
estate, agreeably to his own statement, frequently endorsed for the officers of the bank, to a 
large amount, and at one time, we perceive his name upon paper, to the amount of $25,000, 
himself the only endorser. By the report of the commissioners, it appears that there was due 
to the institution, at the time of its failure, from certain of its officers, the sum of $143,794, and 
the probable loss, upon loans to said officers, will be $100,000. And from extracts from the 
statement showing the present and probable state of said institution, it appears that stock paid 
in and entered to account, is $110,000: and that the notes of the institution, unredeemed or 
unpaid, are $68,264 : And that the total loss, as estimated upon closing this concern, will 
amount to $176,852, 

By the accompanying report of the Attorney General, it will be observed that he is of the 
opinion that the charter of the bank has been forfeited ; and that sufficient proof may be 
obtained, to make some of its officers liable to account, in their individual capacity, for a con- 
siderable amount of debts due the institution ; believing that the public good and justice 
require, for the purpose of preventing similar practices, and for guarding the rights of the 
community, the adoption of vigorous and efficient measures, against those who have wantonly 
trifled with the trust committed to their charge ; but as some doubts exist in the minds of your 
committee, whether individuals who have made themselves liable, have the ability to pay, 
they have therefore thought it advisable to give the Attorney General discretionary powers in 
coiimaencing suits in behalf of the state. The committee Avould therefore ask leave to intro- 
duce a bill. T. S. MORGAN, Chairman. 

Bank Election. [From the N. Y. Evening Post.]— Hudson, January 18, 1814. At a meet- 
ing of the Stockholders of the Bank cif Hudson, on the lOth inst., the following gentlemen were 
chosen directors for the ensuing year: John C. Hogeboom, Alexander Coffin, Gayer Gardner. 
Pvobert Jenkins, Joseph D. Monell, Richard M'Carty, Thomas Jenkins, Wm. P. Van Ness, 
George Monell, Seth G. Macy, Thomas B. Cook, Ralph Barker, Martin Van Buren, Robert 



308 THE PUBLIC LANDS. THE AMERICAN LAND COMPANY 

Taylor and Moses I. Cantine, directors on the part of the State. At a meeting of the direc- 
tors, John C. Hogeboom was re-elected president, and Gilbert Jenkins, cashier. 

THE SURPLUS REVENUE. 

In Throop's message, Jan. 1830, he asserts that there are prudential reasons for continuing 
the duties on imports to a greater extent than the wants of government require, the surplus to 
be divided among the states. Jefferson, in Nov. 1808, wished the surplus revenue to be ap- 
plied to the purposes of education, and the improvement of roads, rivers, and canals. Jack- 
.son, in Dec. 1830, advised that surplus funds might be divided among the states for objects of 
internal improvement; and, in 1832, seemed anxious to confine the land sales to actual settlers 
at about 10 cents an acre. In August, l83(t, when vast sums had been paid for choice lands 
by the public, and these lands thrown into market and bought by speculators with the public 
revenue entrusted to the Treasury banks. Van Buren took ground against distribution ; and in 
1841 Walker and Buchanan tried to mortgage the whole of the land revenue for the balance 
of debt Van Buren had created in his efforts to expel the Seminoles from Florida. Calhoun 
and M'Duffie have held opinions on revenue as wide asunder as the polls. M'Connell of 
Tennessee proposes in Congress to give each settler on the public lands a free grant — the old 
Canadian system, and better than ours — but the national reform plan is an improvement, for 
it secures farms to the industrious for ever — it is, in the spirit of the law of nations, which, as 
Vattel tells us, " will not acknowledge the property and sovereignty of a nation over any unin- 
habited countries, except those of which it has really taken actual possession, in which it has 
formed settlements, or of which it makes actual use." 

In John C. Calhoun's speech, in Senate, Feb, 5, 1840, Globe report, he thus described the 
surplus revenue, and land-buying mania: 

" With the increased rise of prices began the gigantic speculations in the public domain, the price of which, 
being fixed by law, couid not partake of the general rise. To enlarge the room for their operations, I know not how 
many millions (fifty, I would suppose, at least, of the public revenue) was sank in purchasing Indian lands, at their 
fee simple price nearly, and removing tribe after tribe to the West, at enormous cost ; thus subjecting millions 
on millions of the choicest public lands to be seized on by the keen and greedy speculator. The tide now 
swelled with irresistible I'orce, From the banks the deposits passed by discounts into the hands of the land 
speculators ; from them into the hands of the receivers, and thence to the banks ; and again and again repeal- 
ing the same circle, and, at every revolution, passing millions of acres of the public domain from the people into 
the hands of speculators, for worthless rags. Had this state of things continued much longer, every acre of the 
public lands, worth possessing, would have passed from the Government. At this stage the alarm took placo. 
The revenue was attempted to be sijuandcred by the wildest extravagance ; resolutions passed this body, call- 
ing on the Departments to know how much they could spend, and much resentment was felt because tbey 
could not spend fast enough. The deposit act was passed, and the Treasury circular issued ; but, us far as the 
currency was concerned, in vain. The explosion followed, and the banks fell into convulsions, to be resuscitat- 
ed for a moment, but to fall again from a more deadly stroke, under which they now lie prostrate." 

Among the various .■schemes of public plunder, got up by Van Buren and his friends, I may 
name the Missis-sippi Land Company, got up to buy the Indian reservations. Amos Ken- 
dall's connection with it was very discreditable. The Courier and Enquirer truly remarks of 
another vast monopoly, just like the Canada Land Companies untier monarchy, " The history 
of the American Land Company is yet to be written ; it would have been written long since 
had it not been for the application of the Gag Law by Mr. Polk's packed Committee of sup- 
pression and concealment, in 1837." 

Of it the Albany Evening Journal sa)-s : " The American Land Company was formed in 
1835. It overshadowed the Republic. Such a combination of Avealth and power had never 
Ijelbre existed among us. The highest officers in the General and State Governments were 
.•stockholders in this gigantic Monopoly. The Articles of Association were drawn itp by the 
Attorney General of the United States, who was himself a stockholder, and wlio.se brother 
was the President. Its agents were .sent abroad through the new States and Territories to 
monopolise all the valuable public lands. The Land Offices were subsidised. The surplus 
revenue, then in the pet banks, was at the service of tliese speculatc»rs. Millions of dollars 
were invested in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Mississippi, &c. The Stockholders in this 
overgrown monopoly were selected from the men in power. Vast political and peciuiiary in- 
fluences were combined. Standing at the head of the Albany stockholders,were Messrs. Cros- 
WKLi> and Blht, editors and projirietors of the State paper. Then came John Van Buren, 
ilie son of the President of the United States. Sh-as Wrigut, Jr., a Senator in Congress, 
tiirough whose iniliience the deposites were placed within the reach of 'speculators,' was a 
.stockholder in the monopolizing American Land Company. And yet these very men filled 
the country with their croakings again.st ' speculation.' " 

Now is the time for its hi.story. Who will detail it 1 Wright, Butler, and Van Buren had 
tlieir custom house olficers, to collect the taxes at the custom houses — their banks in which to 
deposit the casli, charging no intcn-st — they and their friends were the directors, and they bor- 
rowed out the people's millions at New York, Philadelphia, and Bo.ston, bought immense tracts of 
ihc most valuable of the peojile's lands with their own money, at the very lowest price — and sold 
tiiem back to actual setters at five, ten, fifteen, and even twenty times what they had cost. This 
was Van Burenism in 183G, and it is unchanged. 



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